Tide of War: Mass Effect Warhammer Crossover
by TheSGC
Summary: Warhammer 30k Pre-Heresy and Mass Effect 2 crossover. The 25th Expeditionary Fleet, with the Alpha Legion, is en route to a pacification when something very unexpected happens …
1. Chapter 1

Tides of War, Mass Effect/30k crossover

**Author's note**: You find this out later, but I think it'll help to point out here that this takes place AFTER the incident on 43 Hydra (where Alpharius and Omegon, twin Primarchs of the Alpha Legion, were told that in order to save the galaxy they would have to side with Horus in the Heresy. They did so 'For the Emperor') and AFTER the Edict of Nikaea (which I plan to bring into play later in the story - there are nearly 100 Legionnaires with the 25th and more than a few are psykers). Also, I'm at the University of Washington, so writing the story is a consuming hobby that I constantly have to put on the backburner. Finally - the 406th was unusual in the fact that all the ships were human-crewed, no servitors. Maybe this will come into play later. Heh. Thanks for reading and (hopefully) reviewing. Constructive criticism (fairly specific please) is VERY welcome. This is my first sci-fi story (the others were shorts for English 102 at my community college, hahaha), so I really want to improve on my writing.

**Chapter 1**

**399.M31 [Calibration errors detected]. Minus fifteen hours to the _Crusade Anomaly,_ recorded 2185 CE. In Warp transit towards the Galactic North (relative to Terra)**

There were many assignments he could have taken, after his victories in the sectors of the space south of Earth. He struck down the greenskin leader, designated XLW-52 for Xenos Leader/Warlord 52, over the planet Gorn. He gutted the fleet of Farseer Baduria, winning six worlds nearly simultaneously from the Eldar, when word of the death of their leader came out. But his stroke of brilliance, his 'apotheosis', was the dethroning of the false human empire calling themselves 'The Collective'. It was a conglomerate comprised of several chitinous xenos races and humans.

It had been an affront.

So, in line with traditional compliance doctrine, he led the 406th Expeditionary Fleet, a relatively small detachment – three Emperor-class Battleships and fifteen Lunar-class cruisers – in a violent demonstration of Imperial authority.

Twelve planets had burned in the span of ten days. Three entire enemy fleets dispatched, and only one Lunar-class cruiser lost. It had been a display of tactical brilliance and true Imperial dominance. As a result, Lord Admiral Pento Ajall had been offered any reasonable command he wished. Naturally, he had been doing his research. The 25th Expeditionary Fleet, outfitted with some of the newest ships from the drydocks of Mars, was a fleet that he saw promise in. That was where his career lay. And the best part about it was the fact that a small detachment of Astartes from the Alpha Legion would be accompanying them.

_Small_.

Two strike cruisers, the _Pallid_ and the _Destroyer of Worlds_ (ironically, this small detachment wielded nearly a quarter of the firepower of all the Lunar-class cruisers Ajall had commanded in the 406th), would be joining his flagship, the Oberon-class Battleship _Demon of Ullanor_ (named after the battle it had contributed to), in a mission to bring light to darkened corners of the galaxy towards the galactic north. There were a string of uninhabited planets they had already surveyed while hopping in and out of Warp travel – it had taken nearly a month to do that. There was potential for a few Mechanicus outposts here and there, but nothing _exciting_. No raiders, no reclamations, no glory of battle. Until recently.

The scout ships had reported a greenskin empire further up the proverbial road, near a cluster of stars and systems designated I-321. Officially, their primary goals were to seek out remnants of humanity and eliminate any ongoing threat to those remains, but not to specifically engage any previously unencountered civilizations. The 25th, while a fair-sized Expeditionary Fleet, would be inevitably defeated if left unsupported by further Army and perhaps even Astartes elements. He was to consolidate the systems in question, garrison them with a number of the Army regiments (the 25th had fifty on call), along with a detachment of the Legio Destructor Titan Legion and half the fleet, and move on, acting as a main scouting body for any later human incursions. It was a noble cause, one that Ajall could take pride in.

And if he remembered his schedule correctl-

"Lord, the Sergeant is in the briefing room. He awaits."

Ajall cringed at hearing the servitor's dull voice. It was one change from the 406th that he would never get used to. Unfortunate, but necessary, given the Emperor's undertaking.

()()()

Sergeant Pax stood at the end of the small, circular room, shrouded in shadows. He dwarfed everything in the room, even without his Mark IV Power Armor. He was the most dominating figure present. As it should have been.

He knew he inspired pure awe in the crew members, but more importantly they feared him. Fear was a useful tool, and the Emperor had always understood that.

Betrayal, however, was not something the Emperor readily saw.

Pax hadn't been with the Primarch all those years ago…when they had been told to commit fratricide to save the galaxy. Pax hadn't been there when his brothers had sworn an oath to fight against their forefather, their primogenitor. He hadn't been there when they plotted the course of this…heresy.

And he knew he never would be.

He knew he was too much like the old Legion, short-lived as it was. He was one of the few who were of the original founding. Pax had been one of the first. He had been there when the Emperor commanded his fealty for time eternal. When word had reached Pax's ears about the cabal's prophecy, he had argued vehemently against the current course of action. _They_ hadn't fought alongside Him. They hadn't witnessed Him effortlessly pluck an Ork warlord up from the ground with his mind and literally make him explode. They hadn't witnessed Him destroy an entire squad of bipedal Eldar walkers with seemingly solid lances of pure white light, conjured out of nowhere.

The rest of his Legion never would.

For that reason, he had taken his group of Astartes, the group loyal to him and the Emperor, and split off discreetly from the main Legionary forces, opting instead to join the 25th Expeditionary Fleet, on a voyage far away from the Emperor and his Primarch.

Never before had he been so conflicted about his duty in three hundred and fifty years of service.

His thoughts about his allegiance were interrupted by the arrival of the Lord Admiral. Ajall, Pax recalled his name, was a honourable man, if a bit overzealous. A practical genius. Pax was quietly glad that he was attached to the 25th. He nodded as a formality, and in respect.

"Lord Admiral. I trust you are ready to execute the Duty you are bound to?"

Ajall flinched visibly. Pax was aware of his quietly threatening voice. Unfortunately for the Lord Admiral, Pax _always_ talked like that.

"Of course, Sergeant. How fare the glorious and lauded _Pallid _ and –"

"Just say their names. They are what they are, and that has no effect on the present. Remember that."

Ajall looked physically sick from the fear that was coursing through his body. Trembling, he continued.

"How fare the two Legionary ships?"

Pax snorted in amusement. Noticing Ajall's reaction, he wondered if it had been interpreted as the growl of a particularly fierce predator, closing in on its prey.

"They make with haste alongside us, as your astropaths tell me. The eddies of the Warp, however, are much harder to predict. Tell me – what does your gut tell you on ETA?"

"F-fifteen m-minutes …"

Pax started to laugh, but thought better of it. Ajall might have died of fear at that point.

"I am not beneath asking questions of an officer who is in every way my superior, Lord Admiral. I may not be directly under your command, but I know when to defer to advice and knowledge. Even an angel doesn't know everything, so I hear…"

Ajall hazarded a small chuckle, and was evidently relieved when Pax did not reach out and snap his neck. Pax shifted slightly towards the table in the center of the room, and motioned his hand up and across. A hologram lit up of the Ork-held system. Bright red dots appeared on the displayed cluster of planets. The last recorded positions of the enemy ships were focused around a rocky ice planet. Another figure came up – a number of life signs scanned on the planet. The top number displayed the estimated enemy disposition, but the second number was of a slight surprise to Pax. Life signs registering as human or near human were significantly numbered. Ajall noticed this as well.

"A human presence, no doubt. On the old star maps provided to us from Terra, this group of planets was formerly an outlying system of the empires that existed before the Crusade. We should make all haste to find and liberate these humans."

Pax nodded thoughtfully.

"Plan of attack, Lord Admiral?"

"We come out of Warp outside of the system, marshal our forces, and lead a two pronged invasion. One contains all the Army ground forces and a few – perhaps four? – cruisers, the other consists of my battleships along with the rest of my cruisers and your ships. We break the enemy over our back, sweep in, and take the planet within a week."

The sergeant inclined his head.

"The Alpha Legionnaires will provide static support. Our ships can be placed under your directive, and we will succeed the Army regiments in planetfall. A sound plan, Admiral Ajall. Let us hope it does not fail."

Ajall nodded absently, now drawn into the moving figures of the simulations in the hologram. Pax melted away into the dark, retreating from the room and to readying his men for the coming war.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Time in flux [Imperial Standard]. Est ?.M20 [Error]. Minus forty-seven minutes (.783 hours) to _Crusade Anomaly_, recorded 2185 CE. Human colony New Istanbul, Hawking Eta cluster**

Daniel Fernham was usually bored at his post.

He hadn't enlisted in the Alliance Marines at the age of sixteen with false paperwork making him two years older to get stuck patrolling civilians. He'd seen his fair share of action, against the Geth during the Eden Prime War. As a result of some heroic actions – defined by killing more than ten or so Geth before getting sent to a field hospital – he'd been promoted to the rank of Corporal. His inspiration from that point onwards had been the 'late' Commander Shepard, instead of easy money. Until he'd gotten himself killed by a few little Geth _after_ he'd saved the Citadel from an entire Legion of Geth and supposedly ancient constructs hell-bent on destroying all sentient life (or so the rumors went for that last part).

Yeah, he didn't believe that crap. But, there was no evidence to the contrary, other than a few rumors. So, he had taken it up with the galaxy. He wanted to be _on the frontlines_, where the fighting mattered. Not on mop-up operations. So when he had heard of the vanishing colonies, he decided to put in to a transfer to a location out in the Terminus Systems. He'd geared up, taken all his belongings, and prepared for war.

Instead, he had found this.

It was a doozy of a colony, actually. The planet itself was a frigid wasteland (the average temperature was a little less than ten Celsius in the summer), but the true value of the world lay beneath the surface. There were eezo deposits _everywhere_ – already corporations had started coming to the poles and erecting mining platforms and small, private spaceports. The girls were nice as they went, the entertainment was semi-dedicated to actually providing something to watch other than old Heisman Trophy documentaries, and the people were suspicious enough to keep things interesting. But he hadn't had a shot fired at him in over eight months. And that last time had been a weapon misfire at a shooting range with Private Helena Jackson, the klutz of the company.

Now, he knew, things were going to change.

The company had been mustered up at the barracks, located near some old ruins on a generally frosted over plain that was almost fifty miles wide, and had been told that orbital sensors had picked up two odder than ordinary happenings. One was a single ship, headed on a course towards New Istanbul. The other was some sort of rift that had been monitored for the past week by the research station at the colony. They'd shown pictures taken by satellites of the rift. Fernham had felt instantly queasy simply looking at it. If he peered closely enough, he could even nearly see a face in the rift. Naturally, he hadn't told anyone. He also hadn't gotten much more of a closer look, because at that point his stomach had given up trying to keep in lunch and he'd puked for more than an hour, dry heaving for the twenty minutes at the end. The doctors had checked him out and cleared him for duty, because there had been nothing technically wrong with him.

He leaned back against the iced wooden post behind him, and stared up at the stars. The rift was visible from here, a horizontally stretched red stain in the corner of the sky. Fernham noted the time and clicked his radio.

"HQ, this is Perimeter Patrol Leader Three, please respond."

Static.

"HQ, this is perimeter Patrol Leader Three, please respond."

Several of his patrol mates came into view. They waved wildly and spoke over the short-distance channels. The designated marksman, Private Lieu, was the first to break through the static and talk to Fernham.

"We've been trying to contact you for the last fifteen minutes! What the hell is going on?"

Fernham scowled.

"Watch your tone, _Private_. No one's contacted me in the past hour, Lieu."

The Private mouthed wordlessly in rage. Private Jackson spoke up.

"Sir, we tried calling in a trio of bogeys in sector four-dee. We couldn't get through to HQ, and apparently not even to you."

Corporal Fernham's scowl deepened into a frown as he surveyed the patrol. Jackson, Lieu, Holdings, Davis... they were missing one man.

"Where's Private Khan?"

The patrol had, by now, come to a halt. All of them had their weapons out. They were also extremely short of breath – doubled up, obviously cramping, their breath freezing up in the night air. Fernham spoke again.

"What the hell happened here?"

Private Davis managed a coherent reply while the rest of the team took a breather.

"We were attacked, sir, the bogeys Helena mentioned, they attacked us. Took Khan's shields right out."

Davis paused, as if unsure if he could go on.

"Burned him right up, sir."

Fernham was shocked for a moment, before his common sense returned.

"Khan was a good man. A pain in the ass – " that earned him a few feeble smiles " – but he was a good soldier. But right now we need to get to HQ and tell them what the hell is going on. Holdings, you're piloting the Mako from now on. Move out!"

They all set off at a run towards the transport in the distance.

()()()

**New Istanbul colony barracks, comms room**

"Patrol one, come in, this is Base, over."

2nd lieutenant James Capana clicked the wireless radio set in again.

"Patrol one, this is Base, over. Please respond."

Static greeted him.

It had been like this for the past thirty minutes. Nearly all the patrols were either overdue or not responding. Capana hadn't brought it up to the CO of the company yet, because there were usually communication problems on colonies like New Istanbul, but not this prolonged. He'd dispatched technicians five minutes ago, but they had reported that everything was in working order. And now Captain John Moore was asking for an update on the status of the company's patrol teams, and Capana had nothing to tell him. Resignedly, he opened a hardline channel to the company commander's personal room.

"Sir, this is L-T Capana."

After a moment, his reply came.

"This is Moore. Report."

Capana bit his lip and started.

"Sir, we've been unable to contact any patrol teams for the last thirty minu-"

"What? Why the hell haven't you said anything, Lieutenant? I ordered you to report _anything_ out of the ordinary."

"But sir, this _wasn't_, I didn't realize that it was an issue until I sent techni-"

"You are an idiot, Capana. An idiot. A dolt. A worthless soldier."

Capana winced. Moore kept going on, too.

"Yes sir … I understand sir … sir, I … I'm sorry sir. But respectfully, that's in the past –"

"Do you know what Shepard would've done with you? He would've skinned you alive! Literally, dammit!"

Capana covered the microphone and sighed.

"Sir, First Lieutenant Leiland is requesting your presence at the forward outpost, and she's asking for permission to raise the kinetic barriers."

By now, Moore's rant had lost steam and he was forced to listen to reason.

"Permission granted. I'll be there in five. And when I get there –"

2nd Lieutenant Capana put down the hardline link. Aside from the CO's threats against him, Capana didn't like the situation. The patrols were MIA, the radios were down, and the ship that had entered the system was now off the sensor grid.

He didn't like this one bit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note**: For some reason the 'breaks' that I had inserted for indicating a scene change didn't show up when I ULed the document and I have to go through and edit all those in. I think that if you read the story with the breaks in the right places it makes a little more sense.

**Chapter 3**

**Time in flux [Imperial Standard]. Est ?.M3 [Error]. Minus twelve minutes (.200 hours) to _Crusade Anomaly_, recorded 2185.**

_The time wasn't right_.

Navigator Ligaea DeFrant knew the time was not right.

She knew when they had departed, and the machinery on the walls of the bridge compartment where the Navigators did their duty told her that the estimated time was 399.M31. But that wasn't right. When she felt the eddies of the Warp to guide the _Demon of Ullanor_, it did not even slightly resemble the tumultuous other-realm that she was used to. She had heard from her learning with the Navigator Houses that each sector of the galaxy had a different feel to the Warp. Some were hard currents, some were tidal waves, some were gentle and menacing oceans. There were even parts of the Warp where they were forbidden to look towards, and she had no problem doing so. The stories of those who did were enough to deter anyone from even thinking about the action itself. But this was different.

It was almost as if time had _reversed_.

She knew that was preposterous. It was impossible, wasn't it? Time certainly had a different meaning in the Warp, but the particulars of that theory of the Immaterial scholars eluded her. She contemplated this for a few seconds, and turned around psychically, observing the currents around the ship and beyond, back towards Terra, where the 25th had started their journey.

And the Astronomican flickered.

Ligaea panicked. If the Astronomican died out, that could only mean a few, unthinkable things; the Emperor had been forced out of his duty to the Houses, or that something was interfering with his power, or that … or … he had been killed!

She looked again at the Astronomican. It was like looking at something through muddied water – it wasn't flickering anymore, but it _was_ hazy, as if there was a veil between her and Terra. She started to make her way back towards the intercom to the bridge when she heard a voice.

+Who are you?+

The sheer presence it commanded shocked her. Like the Astronomican, it was muddled as if under water, but the voice instilled fear into her nonetheless. It came again, stronger this time.

+_Who are you?_+

She stopped and looked around fearfully unsure if she should report this. Then the full presence of the voice hit her, throwing a tidal wave of horror out in front of it.

**+You are not of this universe. Why are you here?+**

She could feel the eons of hate behind the weight of the voice. Involuntarily, she started weeping.

**+It is irrelevant. You will bend to forces beyond your comprehension.+**

The dominating presence of the mind – of the _being_ – forced Ligaea to her knees. Sobbing, she reached into her pockets and pulled out a book. She didn't care that anyone saw her now.

Forcing her eyes open, she opened the Lectitio Divinitatus, and choked out the first line.

"The Emperor Protects, for he is our eternal protector, and we are his children."

**+Your gods cannot save you. You … are … doomed.+**

"He directs his wrath through us, and the chosen shall become His angels, the Astartes."

**+We. Are. Harbinger.+**

"The Emperor protects, they take the galaxy, on wings of fire."

**+We are your doom.+**

Alarms sounded on the bridge, and Ligaea continued reading her holy scripture.

()()()

The astropaths were in disarray. The Warp….it was like there were two at once. Messages between ships were travelling abnormally fast, but contact with the other crusade groups was difficult to maintain to say the least. And now the alarms. The automated voice of a servitor blared over the speakers.

"Geller field near failing. Generators one through three offline. All hands brace for boarders."

The lead astropath looked to his comrades. For the past ten minutes, he'd been trying to establish some sort of psychic contact with the Astropathic Choir on Terra. He had assigned the rest of the psykers to maintain contact with the rest of the 25th. Apparently, every other ship was recording the same problems. And he had this voice in his head…

The alarms continued. The astropath focused his psychic powers outwards towards the beacon of the Astronomican, and found that blood was trickling from his ear. Why … ?

_You … are … mine …_

The astropath's heartbeat quickened. He had heard stories of reasons behind the Emperor's Edict at Nikaea. He hoped that he wouldn't have to find out firsthand what thos-

_ … MINE …_

Pure malice invaded his mind as he realized one, last thing before he died. _The Geller field had been broken._

His head exploded in a shower of bone, blood, and gristle.

Talons sprouted from his forearms, his hands flapping backwards uselessly. The daemon reached out and disemboweled an astropath a few feet to the right. Realizing that one of their number had been compromised, the astropaths broke off the psychic conversations they were holding and started to focus their powers towards the daemon. One slammed his palm against an alarm, and a different sound rang out from the chamber and into the rest of the _Demon of Ullanor_.

"Armsmen to Astropath Chambers. Incursion Priority Beta. Armsmen to …"

The astropath who had hit the alarm turned around, lightning crackling in his hands, and was skewered to the wall. His scream of pain was cut short when the daemon beheaded the man, a fountain of blood sprouting forth from his severed neck.

As the daemon rounded on the last two astropaths, several armsmen burst into the room. They started to blast away with large caliber shotgun rounds. The daemon was blasted sideways and stumbled. Realizing that this was likely their only chance, the astropaths, in psychic communion, smashed bolts of lightning into the daemon, hurling it across the room and through the glass window and into the corridor outside the Astropathic Chambers. They sagged, having utilized so much of their power so quickly.

()()()

Armsman Kell edged over the broken glass. He motioned his partners across the room, through the door, and around the fallen daemon. It was smoking as it lay there, immobile. Armsmen Junta and Powlle, gun arms shaking, quivered up to the daemon. Kell nodded his head towards it.

"Is it dead?"

They loosed off a volley into the body, watching a stream of blood erupt from the smoking wounds. Junta turned towards Kell.

"Dunno, I think so."

The daemon erupted upwards and sliced Junta in half. His face was surprised, not realizing that he was in two pieces, and he involuntarily squeezed the trigger, the rounds tearing into the metal ceiling. The astropaths in the room stumbled towards the daemon, still clearly fatigued from the psychic exertions. As they readied another psychic blow, Kell and Powlle pulled the triggers to their shotguns rapidly. Shell after shell sank into the beast, but still it refused to go down. It moved in a blur towards Powlle, slamming into him. He disappeared around the bend, bouncing off the walls violently.

Now the daemon turned towards Kell, baring its teeth viciously. He started backing away as the Astropaths threw lighting at it. Unlike before, the daemon shrugged the electric devastation off. Then it screamed.

"Kha-banda yyrturio!"

Kell's eardrums blew outwards. He fell, dropping his shotgun. Looking back hazily, he realized that the astropaths had been flung to the far wall, unconscious. He turned back, and saw the daemon standing above him, voicing something. Kell closed his eyes, grateful that he couldn't hear the words.

()()()

Sergeant Pax led his squad down the corridors, covering every room with his bolter as his squad moved through the shadows and cleared them out. His five-man squad was a few hundred meters out from the Astropath Chambers when the alarms changed their tune.

"Armsmen to Astropath Chambers. Incursion Priority Beta. Armsmen to Astropath Chambers. Geller Field has failed."

He motioned the squad rapidly with a closed fist forwards twice. They started off at a dead run down the hallway, moving imperceptibly fast and impossibly quietly for armored soldiers of their size. As they rounded the corner, Pax clicked on his vox.

"Brother Rahman, Navigator Room. General order fifteen-a. Full stop, _now._"

A Legionnaire in blackened armor split off down an adjacent corridor, moving effortlessly away from the rest of the squad.

As the rest of the squad converged on the Astropath Chambers, they heard gunfire. Amplified through their helmet speakers was a bestial growling, leaving them wondering as to what could make such a sound. They arrived at the chambers, and Pax stopped as he found a badly bleeding armsman on the ground, a taloned monstrosity standing above him. It had raised its talons to deliver the killing blow, bearing its teeth. Its head almost looked like the scabbed skull of a Terran dog, with the flesh hanging off the cheekbones and dripping corrupted blood. There was a haze around it, as if reality itself seemed unsure how to manifest in such close proximity to the beast.

All this he took in, he would later observe, in exactly point zero two seconds.

He felt his squadmates arrive beside him, and he moved blindingly swiftly, intercepting the talons as they swung downwards with his right vambrace. It turned and snarled, momentarily surprised at the interruption. Pax flew past it, leaving the daemon to swing viciously at empty air. Moving like the perfectly synchronized heads of a hydra, his five brethren fluidly struck its chest as one with carefully placed bolter shots, stunning the daemon and sending it reeling. Before it could recover, Pax had turned and strode forwards, covering several meters instantly. Grunting, he brought his armored gauntlet straight through its chest.

"For the Emperor."

Bringing his other arm through the daemon's body, he wrenched it apart, covering his armor in a shower of smoking blood. It hissed and sizzled against the impenetrable ceramite of his Mark IV power armor, and he stood there, looking at the remains of the beast. With an imperceptible movement of his head, he motioned his brothers to tend to the unconscious astropaths and armsman. He clicked his vox again.

"Brother Rahman. Status update."

()()()

Ligaea was still muttering lines from the Lectitio Divinitatus when an Angel burst in.

She heard a small noise outside the room and looked up when the door had simply blown forwards, slamming against the far wall and clattering down on the floor. Through her tear-filled eyes she saw a shadow flow into the room and stop at a console. Blinking her eyes to clear them and stowing the copy of the Lectitio Divinitatus, she stumbled forward as the shadow stopped moving. The ship lurched perceptibly and the groan of engines reverberated through the walls.

"He … he answered! Oh, thank the Emperor, thank Him, thank Him …"

She slowed to a halt as the figure turned towards her. As her eyes adjusted and focused on the figure, she felt her heart sink, and fear once again took over her.

Ligaea had quite possibly made the worst mistake of her life.

()()()

Brother Rahman regarded her, his helmet analyzing the Navigator. Various vectors of attack outlined themselves on the HUD, but he dismissed them. He was frowning inside his helmet as he opened his mouth to speak to the Navigator.

"What is your name? And what did you mean, 'thank Him'?"

The Navigator mouthed wordlessly as she started to backpedal slowly.

"I-I … I didn't … I … was just … praying …"

It clicked in the Legionnaire's mind. He decided to let it go for the time being. There were other problems to deal with.

"Your worship of our Lord is not the issue at hand … yet. Why did you not bring the ship to a halt and signal the rest of the fleet to the same?"

"I … I don't know."

_The immense relief in her voice would have been amusing in any other situation_, Rahman thought grimly.

"In many cases, truth is subjective. This is one instance it is not. Tell me wha-"

"Brother Rahman. Status update."

He stopped in midsentence, holding a hand up to the Navigator to prevent her from leaving.

"The fleet has dropped out. Incidents were logged, but Legionnaire squads dispersed amongst the ships have dealt with any incursions. Nearly a quarter of the astropaths are dead, either apparently possessed or killed by … monsters."

Brother Rahman paused for a moment, then continued.

"Something happened to the Navigator. She was on her knees when I arrived, in the middle of the room." He frowned slightly as he recalled something. "Do you know of Lorgar's tome?"

"The cult? Damn it. We can be sure that she isn't the only one."

"I agree, Sergeant. What do you –"

"Hold, Rahman. Ajall hails."

After a moment, Pax's voice returned.

"Ajall wants an update. He requests us and the Navigator on the bridge."

Rahman clicked his vox twice, then signed off. He looked back down at the Navigator, who was rather perplexed.

"You are the only Navigator present for the _Demon_, correct?"

She nodded.

"This matter of worship is not finished. We will speak again of this. For now, follow me. The Lord Admiral needs us."

She nodded hesitantly and followed him out.

()()()

Ajall brooded on his throne as he listened to a report from another captain in the fleet.

"Our astropaths were largely driven insane. I can only be grateful for the presence of the Legionnaires."

He rubbed his forehead wearily. The tinny holographic figure of Captain Vincent Jaye of the Dauntless-class cruiser _Dying Star_ continued to report.

"Additionally, our navigators reported an alien presence. Others amongst the fleet also reported similar encounters with some sort of being."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the Space Marines look at Chief Navigator DeFrant. It was unusual, actually; a simple clerical error before the 25th had disembarked had resulted in the rest of the navigators being transferred to other ships in the fleet, leaving the _Demon of Ullanor_ with a single Navigator present onboard. He felt pity for DeFrant. She was good looking in her own right; pale skin, angled features with high cheekbones, and shoulder length auburn hair. It was entirely possible she was the gem of the House she belonged to. Ajall would likely never know – he didn't like dwelling on things he wasn't supposed to. The Navigator Houses were alien to him, and like most other citizens of the empire the Emperor was forging, he feared mutants. Even if they were helpful.

Turning to Sergeant Pax, he gave voice to the concerns that had been gnawing away at him for the past fifteen minutes.

"What the devil happened, anyway? Everything was fine until the Geller Fields started failing."

Pax inclined his helmeted head towards the Navigator. She didn't take the cue until one of the Astartes tapped her on the shoulder, breaking whatever reverie she was in.

"My apologies."

She cleared her throat uncertainly, and began.

"Imagine … imagine a stream. The ship travels on the stream, flowing with the currents. The problem is, it's hard for Navigators to keep track of all the dimensions of the Warp. Time, distance, depth – it's all very abstract, you see. We certainly were heading towards I-321, but we deviated somewhere. Not in destination, but … well, time. Before the Geller Fields failed, I realized that the Astronomican was veiled. I believe that the Warp displaced us to a degree, as far as what _time_ we arrived in system goes."

Ajall nodded slowly.

"But why the Geller Field failures?"

Navigator DeFrant pursed her lips, thinking for a moment.

"There have been instances where fleets have been recorded lost, only to reappear hundreds of years late. In the more extreme cases, navigation becomes extremely difficult for those of my order. I think … I think that this is a very extreme case. Extreme to the point that we actually crossed some sort of barrier to get to where we are. Like a sonic boom, only not in an atmosphere. The strain of crossing that barrier blew out the Geller Fields and … well …"

She trailed off uncertainly, unwilling to mention the otherworldly incursions the 25th had faced. Sergeant Pax stood, immobile in the face of this news, asked the inevitable question.

"So how far forward, or _backwards_, in time did we arrive?"

DeFrant shrugged.

"There's no way to tell. We should probably scan the system, see if there are even any transmissions."

Ajall motioned to the helmsman to do so.

"Scan general frequencies for vox transmissions. All of them."

The helmsman groaned, but swiveled back to his duty. Pax cocked his head back thoughtfully.

"For all we know, the Great Crusade could be over."

That brought smiles to the crew's faces. Even the Navigator looked happier. Ajall leaned back in the command chair, contemplating their next move. After several awkward minutes on the bridge, the helmsman turned around, looking anxious.

"Sir, you're going to want to hear this. I was scanning the lowest recordable short-range frequencies and, um, you should probably listen to it yourself."

Through the message was _stretched_ (fragmented and interspersed with bouts of static), it was audible.

"Mayday, mayday … General frequencies … Unknown …"

Ajall frowned.

"Adjust for time distortion … of five minutes. Raise frequency to five-k. Run it through the audio filters." The message cleared up, and the bridge fell deathly silent as it played.

"Mayday, mayday. This is the human colony New Istanbul requesting reinforcements on all general frequencies, preliminary code green, repeat preliminary code green. We are under attack by an unknown enemy. Facility-wide Kinetic barriers are holding, but generators are falling quickly. Requesting reinforcements ASAP. Civvies are being taken hostage."

The message looped back around. Ajall looked thoughtfully out past the viewscreen and at the distant planet.

"We can't mobilize the 25th so quickly after a Warp jump. Sergeant Pax, we need you and your men to take your strike cruisers into orbit and establish a beachhead against this enemy. The rest of the fleet will move in behind you to consolidate the position if need be."

Pax turned and left, beckoning to his men. Ajall looked around the bridge to the crewmembers.

"Order the Dauntless and the Lunars to accompany the strike cruisers. Four should do, whatever four can be readied within ten minutes.

We march to war."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Plus two hours relative to _Crusade Anomaly_, recorded 2185. Human colony New Istanbul, outer barracks perimeter**

"Get to cover!"

Capana motioned a marine towards his left into a cluster of blocks. Rapid fire followed him and slapped against his kinetic barrier. Capana popped up and returned fire, catching some sort of alien creature on the shoulder with the rounds from his Vindicator Battle Rifle. A slew of luminous yellow rounds forced him back into cover. His radio crackled to life and he heard his commanding officer's voice.

"Are the civilians loaded up yet?"

Capana looked behind him at the Grizzlies. The last remaining civilian was embarking hurriedly.

"We're set, sir. Permission to move out, back to base?"

"Granted. Get your ass back here!"

Capana yelled to get the attention of the other marines, and they bolted for the vehicles, covered by the mass accelerator cannon of the Grizzlies. He felt rounds punch into the back of his shield, forcing an alarming noise to start issuing from his suit's speakers. He felt a trio of concussive waves as the Grizzlies fired again, and with the distraction he jumped into one of the vehicles. Capana started yelling at the pilot.

"Move move move!"

The pilot jumped down from the turret controls and settled in at the front, irritably snapping at him.

"Man the turret, do something useful, dammit!"

Capana pushed his way through the civilians and jumped up into the turret seat.

"We got flyers incoming, six o'clock!"

He synced his omni-tool up with the communications system. Instantly, he was wired into the network of gunners for the three Grizzlies. Relaying the information, the tanks turned their fire towards the flyers. Large and circular, they spewed forth some sort of laser beam that slapped violently against the Grizzlies' hull as they started to pull away and move towards the kinetically shielded military complex in the distance. Capana swiveled in the chair and brought his mass accelerator cannon to bear on one of the flyers.

"Mark … three, three bogeys, six o'clock, coming in hot!"

The Grizzly bucked as the cannon fired and _whupped_ into the spherical flyer, sending it crashing into the ground. The other two Grizzlies fired their cannons, clipping another flyer and forcing the third to break off its attack run. A swarm of bee-like insects followed the flyers, swooping in. Capana saw them assault the trailing Grizzly, relentlessly probing its armor until they found an entry point – the ventilation grills. That Grizzly gunner's lifesigns froze, and the entire vehicle slowed to a halt.

"Shit, shit, SHIT! Drive faster, dammit! Fuck formation, just get us the hell out of here!"

The driver gunned the vehicle and yelled back at Capana.

"Cook the HE rounds and shoot into the swarms!"

Capana flipped a switch to his right, loading in the HE rounds.

"Remote sequence set … firing!"

And just in time. A swarm was closing in on Capana's Grizzly when he pressed the trigger. The round tore a hole to the center of the group before detonating explosively, taking the entire swarm with it in a ball of fire. Capana whooped.

"And _that's_ how you do it, marines. Burn 'em right up, dammit!"

The gunner of the other remaining Grizzly, Grizzly Two, laughed, but sobered up right away.

"We got foot mobiles, three o'clock. Watch 'em, lead."

Capana bumped upwards in his seat as the Grizzly rumbled over the frozen terrain. He steadied the mass accelerator cannon and brought it to bear on the group he'd been warned about. Still worrying about the swarms, he directed the gunner of Grizzly Two.

"Keep those swarms off us, two. Keep those HEs going."

His cannon loaded, he fired a single shot into the midst of the enemy. The group flew apart explosively, body parts flying as the Grizzlies passed the remains at nearly fifty miles per hour. The gunner of Grizzly Two's voice was strained as he offered an update on the radio.

"I got two swarms incoming, fast! We can't hold them off!"

Lieutenant Capana swung his chair back and he saw exactly what the other gunner was worried about. Three distinct swarms were buzzing right behind Grizzly Two.

"I'm cooking a HE now. Tell your driver to gun it, you're about to get a helluva kick in the ass."

Capana grinned ferociously as he mashed the trigger on his cannon, sending a round into their midst. Just like before, they were engulfed in flames. Grizzly Two shot forward, propelled by the explosive power of the round. The lieutenant leaned back in his chair, relieved that they had broken away from the enemy.

"We're home free, two. Good job."

The Grizzlies launched themselves over a small stream and over a small ridge that served as the forward defense line for the military installation. Breaking through the kinetic barriers that were protecting the inner workings of the base from the attack, they skidded to a halt next to a blocky set of white buildings that served as the headquarters of the marine detachment. Capana and the driver jumped out, herded the civilians towards the barracks at the rear of the facility, and ran into the HQ. A flurry of activity greeted them – the HQ was a hive of people running around in full armor, trying to direct troops and coordinate the war effort. Capana made to the radio officer while the Grizzly pilot went to the driver dispatchers. He recognized the radio officer to be Private James Henshaw - the young but prodigal student from the Elysium Academy. He had promise, Capana gave him that, but this was his first real engagement. He was worried that the youngster wouldn't be able to pull everything together.

"What's the status on those patrols, Henshaw?"

Henshaw looked up.

"Patrols one and two are gone, sir. Dead. Verified by patrol three, who just made it into the perimeter. They're up on line Delta, keeping the bloody aliens at bay. Still no word on those reinforcements from Seventh Fleet. Sensors are mostly blind and going nuts – hell, now they're reporting a _fleet_ of ships out there. Like that's even fucking possible."

Capana laughed.

"Alright, Private. Grab an Avenger and make yourself useful. I'll take over here."

Henshaw got up, saluted, and went off towards the armory. Capana sat down at the long range radio station and checked Henshaw's work. The sensors _were_ off their rockers – just hours before, when the space telemetry equipment had been working, there'd been nothing. He realized his earlier worries were unfounded: the young Private's work had been exceptional, actually – he'd covered Morse code, radio, and FTL communications. He checked for incoming message, and was rewarded by one.

_Messages received. Messages hard to decipher. Enemy jamming colony. Seventh Fleet inbound._

Capana felt immense relief at the news. The Seventh Fleet, headquartered at Shanxi, was incoming. He was about to move to the local station to report in to Moore when the screen displaying the long-range radio communications lit up. There was … there was another incoming message?

He swiveled back to the screen and tapped it. A looped message was playing.

"This is the Astartes Strike Cruiser _Pallid._ Call for reinforcements received. If you are listening, respond with coordinates for troop drop location."

_Astartes? _'Strike Cruiser'? Named _Pallid_? What the hell was a strike cruiser, anyway?

"Uh, this is New Istanbul military installation to Cruiser _Pallid_. We are under attack by an unknown enemy. We need all the shit you can throw at them, right _now_."

There was a break in the looped message as it was interrupted by a deep bass voice.

"This is Sergeant Amniatus Pax aboard the strike cruiser _Pallid_. We received your message and are inbound to your location. What is the situation groundside?"

Capana continued, perplexed.

"Erm, the base is under attack by an unknown enemy of unknown disposition. Look, uh, who exactly are you? You part of Seventh Fleet?" The Lieutenant frowned as something Pax had said registered in his mind. "Wait. Why is a sergeant in command of a star sh-"

"Give me the coordinates of the last known enemy positions. Reinforcements will be inbound approximately three minutes after successful transmittance."

Capana tapped away at the screen, sending the coordinates. Before he could ask more questions, the link cut out. Uncertainly, he turned to the short range communicators to notify Captain Moore. Of both occurances.

**Outskirts of military outpost, Human colony New Istanbul**

Fernham threw a disc-shaped grenade towards a cluster of rocks and watched as the explosion forced out several burning figures. He leaned around the empty munitions box he was taking cover behind and dropped several of the figures. He swept the immediate horizon and tapped the trigger of his M-8 Avenger rifle, loosing off a burst of rounds into a xenos lifeform. It stumbled as he the rounds hit, but recovered to bring its beam rifle to bear on the Corporal. He ducked back into cover as the sustained beam sliced a neat hole through the box. Fernham activated his helmet's radio.

"Left, thirty meters of my position! Take out its barrier!"

From his right rose a figure, and over the sounds of the raging battle, he heard a _thump thump_, in rapid succession. Fernham smiled as he heard Private Lieu's voice in his ear.

"Double tapped. We got a group, dead ahead. Marking … now."

The Alliance turrets disgorged large-caliber rounds towards the marked enemy units, forcing them into cover. From somewhere along the defensive line, a marine vaulted over his cover and raced closer to the enemy, shooting wildly and keeping the enemy from raising their heads. Fernham stood up, emptying disciplined bursts into the marked aliens. Some of them managed to return fire, their rounds clipping Fernham's kinetic shield. The indicator on his HUD went down by nearly a quarter before other marines joined him. They were burning through thermal clips fast but reaping a terrible toll on the enemy, who began dropping out of cover in pieces as grenades and gunfire came flying in. The Alliance Marines sprinted forward quickly in a skirmish line to establish a closer defensive position, hoping to drive the aliens back for at least a small reprieve. A marine slid to a halt next to Fernham, showering him with frost. He turned and realized that Private Jackson was beside him, waiting to deliver a report.

"Sir, reinforcements are inbound. The dumbass Capana told them grid eighteen for the drop. We have to push them back further, sir, most of them are in seventeen and a few are still hanging about in sixtee –"

"Get back, get back! TANK!"

Both of the marines looked up at the shouted warning as a quadruped insectoid slammed down into the ground amidst a group of marines huddled around a destroyed truck. The remains of the vehicle were blasted apart as the mechanical creature landed, shaking the ground around it. The marines were sent flying, dazed.

Fernham raised his gun and started shooting, not caring about his aim.

"Take it down, take it down, it's – augh!"

The same marine who had voiced the warning yelled as she was speared into the ground in a lightning quick movement by the creature. Her kinetic barrier popped audibly at the point of impact. It quivered once above her, then tore apart. Blood went flying everywhere and the sustained fire from nearly fifty marines tore into the 'tank'. Sparks flew as it rose back up into the air, bucking as rounds slammed into its biotic barrier. The dazed marines were struggling to get up when it opened fire.

One marine was blasted backwards as his kinetic barrier gave way in under a second. Another ducked, only to have his armor decimated as it melted under the onslaught. The others started running, several simply being gunned down by the aliens behind their vehicle. Fernham unclipped a grenade from his belt and threw it at the contraption. It exploded right in front of the beast, stopping its ranged fire for the time being and distracting it. He saw Private Jackson running as fast as her armor would allow her, back towards the more heavily defended central compound.

"Fernham, clear out. The Grizzlies have got it locked. Five seconds!"

Finally, he started running as he heard Captain Moore's voice on the radio channel. He made it halfway to the trenches where the Marines were making their latest stand when he was flattened, thrown hard to the ground face-first by the concussive waves of five M-29A Grizzly mass accelerator cannons. Even the helmet's audio dampeners couldn't deafen the sound of five simultaneous impacts. A terrible groan filled the air as the mechanical tank hovered the air, disintegrating into nothingness.

They had sacrificed too much to take it out, however. It had drawn their fire long enough for its allies to move up along with a number horribly deformed bipedal beings. Their heads were mounted on the side, semi-upright, next to mammoth cannons. Nearly twenty of these twisted facsimiles of the human form advanced in a straight line towards the battered line of marines. Fernham groggily looked back towards line of monsters advancing on the Alliance Marines and saw them fire in cohesion. A wave of blue explosions engulfed the defenders. His head hit the frost-covered ground, and as he saw fireballs in the sky, he knew the colony was damned.

Daniel Fernham closed his eyes and let unconsciousness take over him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: **I know I get comma-happy a lot. Sorry. Hehe. Also, until now, we've only seen Praetorians and regular Collector soldiers. Just to prevent confusion, Scions are introduced here, so keep that in mind. Oh, and yes, bolters are mini rocket launchers. And so the shots are referred to as 'rockets' sometimes. If the enemies get a little confusing please say something in the reviews so I change the structure/wording a bit.

**Update**** 8/4/2012**: sort of going back and editing what I wrote months ago, I'm seeing errors, so I'm slowly correcting them.

**Chapter Five**

**Plus two point four hours relative to **_**Crusade Anomaly**_**, recorded 2185. Space above human colony New Istanbul, Strike Cruiser **_**Destoyer of Worlds**_

Brother Rahman tugged at the grav harnesses, making sure they were perfectly tight. He looked around the interior of the drop pod at the Legionnaires who were accompanying him. Pax had assigned him the singular duty of bringing the Imperium's wrath to this unknown enemy. He had given Rahman command of First Squad for the reinforcement strike. There were four of them total – Brothers Turman, Feyr, and Durrow – accompanying Rahman in the pod. Their armor had been darkened even further past the natural shade of black it had been before, in response to the time of night of the drop. All of them were armed with power swords from the Strike Cruisers reliquary and Stalker-pattern bolters. The latter was a new addition to the Alpha Legion, straight from the Martian forges. They had received them due to the type of warfare they waged, and it had served them well thus far.

Rahman wondered what the other Marines in the three other drop pods – one on the _Destroyer_ and two on the _Pallid_ – were doing when the overhead lighting turned red, and Pax's voice came the speakers.

"Rahman, lead First Squad down to the coordinates provided by this 'Alliance' member. The others will assault the secondary objectives in the habitat/shelter city itself and secure any human prisoners. You launch … _now_."

The entire pod jolted and a roar filled the compartment. The Astartes bucked in their harnesses and calmly looked at Rahman for the pre-landing briefing. Not distracted by the noise, he recalled the facts of the strike operation as relayed to him by Pax and spoke to First Squad. Rahman twitched his hand, activating the holographic display in the center and twisting it to zoom in to the area of operations.

"We're reinforcing the Alliance lines at position locator twelve, relative to geocentric positioning markers pinpointed by the Imperial Army ships. Squads Five, Eight, and Ten are consolidating the city. There is a mass superstructure here –" He motioned to a location on the outskirts of the city, " – but we don't have the time to investigate it. Apparently this alien enemy has been loading some citizens - prisoners - onto this ship. The two Army vessels with the _Pallid_ and the _Destroyer_ are monitoring it, and will engage if moves to escape."

Rahman flipped the hologram on its side, highlighting a dense blue area. The drop pod shook violently as the lights changed hue from red to orange. They had passed through space and were now entering the planet's atmosphere. Everything rattled loudly as the Legionnaire continued his speech.

"The last recorded enemy positions in grid twelve were last updated fifteen seconds ago, by auspex scans. Note them, plus anywhere from twenty to sixty yards difference towards the defensive lines, here in green."

As the lines lit up across the see-through display, the lighting hue changed again, this time to neon green as the pod's deceleration thrusters kicked in. All the Space Marine were jolted against their harness, and an emotionless voice started a countdown. Rahman said one last thing to his men before he fell silent:

"The Legion's pacification of fifteen-eighty four is our template for this mission." He paused. "Leave no survivors."

The drop pod's afterburners kicked in, and the Astartes were jolted one last time before the pod slammed into the ground behind enemy lines, the shockwave from the impact throwing the rubble around the dropsite meters away. Such was the force of the impact that the Alpha Legionnaires lost consciousness for a second before the securing harnesses lifted into their compartments and the Astartes snapped back to attention, raising their bolters as the folded embarkation ramps slammed down against the ground. Rahman did not need to issue a warcry – the Alpha Legion fought silently and violently, cutting the throats of their enemies from the dark and exploiting every single weakness they could.

The hydra had been called to war.

()()()

**New Istanbul, groundside**

Private Helena Jackson had never known what true war was until today.

When the four legged tank had single handedly changed the tide of the battle, all the marines had fallen back, hoping that the Grizzlies would hold the enemy off long enough for them to survive. Most of them made it, but now a new horror had joined the battle. They were mowing through marines by the minute. Their shoulder (if a lump on the side of a bigger lump could be called as such) mounted cannons were very long-range _and_ had better cover busting techniques than any other enemy type they'd encountered thus far.

And when Fernham had gone down, Jackson had felt so hopeless. He had been an older brother to her, teaching her things she could never have learned just from boot camp.

"Incoming meteor!"

Helena leaned back against the cover she had, looking up at the radioed warning. There were … four? … fiery streaks in the night sky, and one seemed to be angling towards the enemy masses. She flinched as she felt the concrete slab she was crouching behind cracked under the strain of being struck by several shots at once. Helena loosed off shots from around the edge of the slab, stopping only when the thermal clip on her Avenger auto-ejected and she was forced to slam a new one home. Gunfire was sporadically erupting from the covered marines, raking the enemy soldiers as they made their inexorable advance.

"It's not breaking up! Audio filters at max, it's passing right over us!"

A high-pitched roar rolled over the remaining Alliance Marines like thunder as the fireball passed overhead by several hundred meters. Private Jackson twisted around and looked to her right at the fiery object. Her eyes widened as she used her helmet's zoom, and she quickly radioed in.

"What the hell? That's not a meteor – sending out visual _now_!"

She saw it impact with tremendous force nearly two hundred meters away from her position, sending debris flying and creating a crater nearly three times as wide as the object itself. The enemy ignored it and she was forced to duck as one of the deformed monsters targeted her concrete chunk for annihilation. The ground shuddered as explosive blue rounds crashed repeatedly into her cover - she huddled in a fetal position behind it in response. The concrete slab cracked and chipped, sending shrapnel into her kinetic shield. She saw Alliance Marines pour fire into the enemy line, downing several of the lumbering beasts as she rolled to her right and got up, shooting to cover her movements.

It didn't fool the hunchbacked terrors.

Several of them began to target her. Helena froze. This was it.

She raised her M-8 Avenger in defiance, readying to unload as much of her clip as she could, when the monsters bucked forwards violently. Their shots went wide as repeated gunfire from black shadows behind them slammed into their backs. Jackson zoomed in with her helmet, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Every time a shot struck, she observed, it exploded violently against the back armor of the cannon-wielding enemy. Their smaller allies, the ones the marines had been fighting primarily against earlier turned to try and target the new foes. Helena tried to count the number of shadows – she reckoned that there were nine or ten of them.

By now the guns of the defenders had fallen silent, as they watched the enemy host getting picked apart by their unseen allies.

()()()

Brother Rahman snapped off a shot with his Stalker-pattern bolter before sliding fluidly to the side to avoid the wildly inaccurate return fire. His bolter round exploded a spindly alien, its streamlined head falling away from the scarce remains of the body. Brother Durrow moved forward nearly ten meters in one bound, dropping three more of the aliens with carefully placed shots as he ran. Brothers Turman and Feyr had melted in with the blackness of the night when they had left the drop pod, circling around the main enemy force. Now they too opened fire, blowing xenos life forms out from behind the cover from where they crouched. The staccato _booms_ of bolter fire echoed loudly in the night as the enemy tried to counter the new threat.

"Feyr. Follow me in. We take out those heavies in close combat. Turman, Durrow, take care of the weaker ones as you see fit. Leave at least one for interrogation."

The two Astartes moved forwards together, Feyr trailing behind slightly to the right. Turman and Durrow continued their terror campaign and now strode into the areas lighted by the Alliance Marines' floodlights. The aliens fired wildly at them, hoping to bring these behemoths down, but their small-arms fire harmlessly clattered off the ceramite armor. Their bolters spat explosive rockets at enemy units over and over again, their gunfire more precise than any human could ever hope to achieve. Chests burst inwards, heads exploded, and bodies were obliterated as the two Astartes grimly mowed the enemy down.

Meanwhile, Rahman and Feyr had closed the distance between them and the bulk of the heavies. Taking running leaps off particularly large pieces of rubble, both stowed their bolters at the apex of their assisted jumps, pulled out their power swords, and thumbed the activation runes.

Rahman landed heavily on both feet, grunting, while Feyr rolled quickly and stabbed upwards to cut one enemy cleanly in half with a single graceful stroke. The Legoinnaire then began to lay violently into the rest of the heavies. Rahman shoulder-barged one of the deformed aliens, sending it flying into one of its comrades. Both were quickly dispatched soon after as Rahman violently stomped on their bodies, instantly pulping them both. He leaped forwards and swept his power sword through the armored legs of three heavies on a hard sideways swing of his sword and a return cut, bringing them down hard. As he straightened up and ran towards the final group of the cannon-wielding enemies, he tossed a frag grenade backwards on a ten-second timer. He clicked his vox once as the grenade landed amongst the crippled enemies, who were struggling to straighten themselves.

Feyr had easily taken care of his group and was shooting stalker rounds into the group that Rahman was charging when he heard the click. He moved quickly to his left, leaving enormous bootprints in the semi-frozen ground as he cleared out of the blast zone of the frag grenade.

The last group of the heavies by now realized that they were doomed – and if they hadn't known immediately, they knew after the violent explosion that rendered three of their comrades dead. All five had started to limp away as fast as they could (which wasn't very fast at all, Rahman noted) in a loose formation. By the time they had traveled ten feet, Rahman was amongst them. A bolter round slammed into the back of one, sending it reeling before Rahman impaled it with his power sword. He lifted the enemy into the air, letting it slide towards the haft before he lowered the sword and kicked it off. While he had disposed of the heavy, Feyr had shot the four others in the group precisely through their heads. The bolter rounds had penetrated their skulls before detonating, exploding the heads from the inside. They dropped, devoid of any functioning.

By now, Turman and Durrow had secured three aliens for interrogation. Cornered, the aliens unloaded a multitude shots at the two Space Marines before the Astartes simply shot off the xenos' extremities. Durrow, the squad's Apothecary, just waited until they bled into shock before fusing their wounds shut with his narthecium.

()()()

Private Helena Jackson stood in the open, like many of her fellow Alliance Marines, mouths hanging open with shock.

The entire engagement since the huge behemoths landed had lasted only forty-five seconds.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note:** There's very little that will stop me from finishing this story through, which I project (now) to be about 30-40 chapters, since there are 4-5 major plot lines I want to go through and develop. Unfortunately, due to time constraints (drumroll please ... that's good, a little more ... keep going ... alright, got you all angry enough? Excellent ;D) chapters will be interspersed between every 1-2 weekends until about December (at which point work on this should increase exponentially). I work on the story in a notebook of mine when I'm away from the computer (which is a lot, actually), then type it up in MS word with heavy editing, then upload it here, read it through once and make some changes, post it, THEN read it again and make final changes if any. So all in all, a lengthy process. So far, I've been overwhelmed with the response. This is my first dedicated story and I'd be lying if I said that the response through ch. 1-5 wasn't way better than I originally predicted it would be. I really hope to deliver a great experience chapter after chapter, but bear with me. Unless something drastic happens, I'll keep chipping away at the old gal until she's all done. Again, thanks for all the reviews and reads, and I hope you come back for more.

I'm about 3/4s of the way through Ch. 7 in handwriting, which'll probably be up next weekend (I've got a midterm coming up next Monday, too, plus the Seahawks are playing next Sunday, so ... yeah). And I'm not guaranteeing this, but there is an outside chance that it will get posted up tomorrow. Very outside. Like 'outside' in the Antarctic plains in a blizzard sense. But don't rule it out.

**Chapter 6**

**New Istanbul, Alliance Military Installation**

Lieutenant Capana marched alongside the bound aliens. Their newfound allies, two of the walking tanks calling themselves 'Legionnaires', trailed the Alliance Marines guarding the 'drones' (a word made up by several marines who had seen them flying with the insectoid wings on their backs). Every step the armored giants took was accompanied by the faintest whirring, as if their armor itself was straining to hold them in. They were tall – very tall. Each one was easily the size of three or four fully armored Alliance Marines standing shoulder to shoulder. The shorter of the two was nearly eight feet tall. Capana had never before seen beings of their stature in his life. He reckoned that anyone of them could take on an Atlas mech head to head and win.

They were, simply put, gods of war incarnate.

The most mysterious thing about them, however, was the fact that none of them had really spoken, other than reporting that the 'Legionnaires of the Twentieth had come to their aid'. The marines had been immensely relieved when the enemy had decimated, if thoroughly shocked - and a bit miffed - that it had taken only four of these super soldiers to do what an entire company supported by tanks couldn't. After they'd secured the prisoners (who, oddly enough, had made no effort to escape – indeed, they hadn't done much of anything besides walk with their captors aimlessly), the Legionnaires had just stood back and let the Alliance Marines take it from there.

As the soldiers marched into the detention block to deposit their prisoners, Capana found himself walking alongside one of the giants. He looked up, a question forming in his mind.

"So, you said you were Legionnaires of the Twentieth, right? I wasn't aware that the Alliance made … people like you. Much less had access to armor like yours. Hell, you don't even _need_ barriers. You work for a private corporation or something?"

The giant looked down at the Lieutenant. Capana had the weird feeling that he was being judged by some wrathful god. He twitched involuntarily as the Legionnaire's deep bass tones crashed over him like a tidal wave.

"I have encountered mercenaries before."

"So that's what you are?"

A noise issued from the helmet. It sounded like a laugh and a growl, mixed together in some horrifying predatory sound. Capana had no idea how to respond to that. Luckily, he didn't have to.

"No. I fight for my liege. I fight for a dream. I fight for humanity."

The Lieutenant nodded in awe. The giant looked back down at him.

"Actually, I've been working on that for a while. Odd how three sentences took so long to come up with."

That caught Capana off guard. He worked his mouth for a few seconds, not sure how to respond to a joke from a being he believed probably wasn't even human. As they walked up a stairwell, Capana finally got his larynx working again.

"I uh … well, it's, uh … pretty good, actually. From, um, a movie or something."

The giant made the same predatory sound as he walked through the open door into the cell observation room. The Lieutenant followed.

"Good to hear. I hadn't gotten a chance to dish it out to a remembrancer."

Capana was about to ask what a remembrancer was before Captain Moore, up at the forefront of the group, rapped his knuckles against the concrete panel where the viewscreens were inset. He spoke into a microphone as Capana made his way through the marines in the room and up next to the Captain.

"Get the interrogation started."

Capana looked at the viewscreen that displayed the main cell. It was a shadowy block of steel, boxed in by a high-grade kinetic barrier on one side. Normally, personal barriers would be set at frequencies that would fluctuate, allowing the user to sidle up against a wall to take cover if need be without bouncing off the said wall. In contrast, these barriers had been set at much higher oscillation frequencies, blocking out everything and creating a true barrier rather than a selective one. In spite of these obvious attempts to demoralize the drones, they just stood there as if mocking their captors.

A uniformed human walked down the hallway adjacent to the holding area and stood right outside the cell. He activated his omni-tool and tapped it several times. A buzz was heard as the barrier's frequencies were lowered, and the interrogator walked in. Immediately, he started asking questions, barging headfirst into the verbal confrontation.

"Who are you? _What_ are you? What gives you the right to invade an Alliance colony?"

The drones just stood there in the middle of the cell, apparently devoid of any understanding. The interrogator continued, all the while walking closer to the alien.

"I'll tell you this much: you do _not_ want to fuck with the Alliance. You know your little ship that you came in? Try it with a _fucking_ dreadnought in your _fucking_ face, you piece of alien shit."

By now, the interrogator was inches away from the face of the drone in the middle. His voice had been raised a few decibels, too.

"You're gonna pay for all the civvies you took. You're gonna get your asses handed to you the next time you try this."

The interrogator had raised his voice to the point where he was shouting and sending flecks of spit flying across the drone's face.

"You're gonna get it! We're gonna rape you so hard in the ass you aren't even going to live through it! We're gonna –"

**+You are insignificant, worm. We will sweep down from the stars and return you to oblivion. You are nothing.+**

The interrogator stumbled backwards, the voice affecting him so adversely that he felt as if the more distance he put between him and the drone the better. The marines in the viewing room took a collective shudder as the pure malice in the voice permeated through the speakers. They knew instantly that this was an enemy that knew no apprehension. It knew no fear. It _was_ fear. The interrogator, feeling the full brunt of the presence of this mind, backed out of the room and fell down against the corridor wall, sliding down until he was lying on the ground, shuddering. The middle drone – the one who had spoken – remained standing, markedly unconcerned with anything or anyone. A quietly threatening voice from the back of the viewing room broke the hypnotic state the marines were in.

"We will handle this. Durow, take care of it."

The Legionnaire who Capana had talked with earlier nodded to his fellow, the one called Durrow. He moved fluidly out of the room. After a short intermission, the Legionnaire entered the area covered by the security cameras. He knelt by the fallen interrogator, bringing a hand to his neck. Evidently finding nothing immediately wrong, the legionnaire moved away from him and into the cell. The middle drone spoke again. A slit above its jaw had opened, but was oddly out of sync with everything it said. To Capana, it looked like a badly coordinated puppet.

**+You are not from this place. You do not belong here. Who are you?+**

The Legionnaire was completely unaffected by the voice, simply standing there in front of the drone defiantly.

**+It is of no consequence. Your appearance does not matter. The Reapers will wipe you and your allies off the face of this galaxy.+**

"You ask us who we are. I tell you now: we are Astartes, and we are legion. Now, _shut up_."

With a movement that Capana's mind barely even registered as visible, Durrow hit the two drones flanking the talker with such force that their skulls simply caved inwards. They were flung through the air and hit the far walls, leaving splatters of blood on the facades as they bounced off and landed on the ground. Several marines in the viewing room protested loudly at this gory display. The Legionnaire who Capana had chatted with earlier simply stood there, oblivious to their arguments. The Lieutenant turned around angrily.

"What the _hell_ was that for? Now there's only one of them, how are we going to get info from 'em now?"

The giant just continued to look at the viewscreen. Capana was about to push through the marines and confront him when a number of the Alliance soldiers yelled out in horror. He turned around to see the Legionnaire's arm protruding from the remaining drone's chest, covered in yellowish orange blood. He lifted the drone up as it twitched several times before becoming limp. The Astartes pulled the drone off his arm and dropped it on the ground. Durrow crouched, reached over to his forearm, and activated a part of the machinery mounted there. A saw slid out from a compartment and he dug in to the skull, drawing his saw along an imaginary axis around it. The top half of the skull fell away, along with a small portion of the brain that had managed to get in the way of the cutting tool. The saw retracted, and the Astartes proceeded to take off his helmet.

It was the first time that any of the Alliance soldiers has seen their saviors' faces. By now, the complaints had died (first, they weren't willing to risk alienating these superhuman beings and second, they weren't entirely sure that they'd even be able to stop the Legionnaires from doing whatever they wanted to do anyway) and they were huddled around the viewscreen. Durrow's face was pale, his close-cropped black hair at stark contrast with his skin. His nose was straight and narrow, not unlike many of the Earth-born marines from the European continent that Capana had known. Durrow's eyes were a bright, piercing blue, but there was an unforgiving hardness to them. It struck Capana as a look from someone who had quite possibly seen too much, but had the iron will to keep fighting even when all was lost. What surprised him, however, wasn't how human Durrow looked, but how truly alien he was to a man like Capana through who he was. Behind him, the Legionnaire in the viewing room spoke quietly to Alliance personnel's interest in Durrow.

"We were human. A long time ago. Three centuries removed from being human for my brother there."

Capana realized that the Legionnaires probably got that sort of reaction a lot.

What he saw next both reinforced the Astartes' statement and nearly make him puke.

Durrow had set aside his helmet, reached into the skull cavity of the dead drone, and pulled off a bit of the brain. As Capana's mouth hung open in disgust, Durrow popped the bit into his mouth and chewed it. Apparently not finding it enough to sate his appetite, he pulled off several more pieces of the brain and consumed them before he put his helmet back on. The Legionnaire with the marines offered up an amused explanation as several of the marines (including Captain Moore) ran to various waste buckets in the room and emptied out their stomachs.

"All of the Astartes are implanted with an organ called the Omophagea. It allows us to assimilate stored genetic information related to memory from the mind of any given organism."

"You can read minds by _eating_ them? What the _fuck_?" A marine who had stopped puking long enough managed to ask incredulously. The Legionnaire nodded once. Durrow exited the cell, leaving the bloodied remains where they were. Capana leaned over, trying to retain the dinner he had all those hours ago.

No. These newcomers were most definitely _not_ human.

()()()

Brother Rahman watched the Alliance Marines empty their bellies. Some of their mannerisms reminded him of those remembrancers the Emperor had allowed on the Expeditionary Fleets (luckily, there had been none assigned to the 25th). They struck him as _soft_. Not physically – these marines were fairly well built and could probably be one of the more effective garrison units that were left behind in the wake of the Crusade. Looking at their performance against the alien invasion, maybe they'd even be attached to an Iron Warriors unit – they'd had a fairly decent fortification plan and had held off for a proportionally high amount of time. They could learn a lot from the masters of siege warfare of the Fourth Legion.

But mentally, they were lacking the spirit and determination that was common amongst all the frontline units that Rahman had served with. There were a few amongst these Alliance soldiers who could probably make the cut, like the lieutenant who Rahman had talked with. The one calling himself Capana. For the most part, though, they weren't willing to go to any lengths necessary to win like the Imperial Army units Rahman had fought alongside. These marines likely wouldn't last a second, say, against an invading greenskin host. They simply hadn't seen the horrors of true war like most primary Army units had.

His thoughts were interrupted as Durrow reentered the room. Rahman switched to a private vox frequency to talk to him.

"What did you find?"

"Aside from tasting extremely bland?"

"I'll make sure to keep that in mind when next I decide to try brain meat."

Durrow grunted.

"They … the drones aren't autonomous. That's why I had to eat half of the damn thing's mind."

"Explain."

"They're like robots. The power required to maintain control over a large number of these things would be ... large, for want of a better word."

Rahman tightened his fist involuntarily.

"Artificial intelligence?"

"Maybe. I wouldn't rule it out."

"We can't do anything about that right now. What else did you find?"

Durrow looked at the viewscreen showing the prison cell.

"They call themselves the Collectors."


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note:** managed to work this out before the weekend. If you have any questions about the story (what direction it's heading, why did I do this etc etc etc) please don't hesitate to PM me. I feel like any explanations I can offer will probably enhance the reading experience. And point out inconsistencies that you all notice in the reviews if any.

**Chapter 7**

**Aboard the Strike Cruiser **_**Destroyer of Worlds **_

_Sergeant_ Pax leaned back in his command throne, listening to Ajall's update. The Expeditionary Fleet was nearly prepared, thankfully.

"The warp jump devastated our ships. To say that simply a few astropaths died would be understating it. While the Legionnaires held these … _otherworldly_ … incursions off, the Army regiments got the brunt of it on their vessels without any such aid."

Pax shrugged.

"How long until the fleet is ready to move?"

Ajall's holographic figure flickered as an aid handed him a paper chit. He called to a crewman off the screen.

"Looks like we should be moving the bulk of the fleet in just under an hour." Pax caught the omission.

"The Ark Mechanicus? And the Titan transporters?"

"Ah…the Mechancum still insists on taking a few more hours to analyze the warp anomaly, despite whatever we've told them. Chief Navigator DeFrant's theory seems to be solid, so we've told them. Unfortunately, her theory is also not provable for our cousins in the mechanized brotherhood."

The Sergeant sighed. The Mechanicum was always taking things too far.

"Tell them to move anyways. Don't make it a request. "

Pax's annoyance with the Martian Adepts stretched back – far back. Their objectionable behavior had always been a source for dislike for the Legionnaire. He was still brooding about the past when a light went off on the communications console. The crewman there ran his hands over the controls and swiveled around in his chair to face Pax.

"Sir, it's Rahman with the update on the interrogation. Connection is sound and encrypted."

The Sergeant nodded.

"Groundside status update?"

There was a moment of static before Rahman's voice came through.

"We've established contact with Alliance forces on the ground."

He paused.

"I want to give you some of the intel in-person."

"Visual?"

"And genetic."

Pax grinned ferally.

"Durrow ate a brain _again_? I've lost track of how many times he's done that. Did he find anything out?"

"The enemy calls themselves the Collectors. Durrow's still sorting through the information. Beings called the Reapers factor into it. He's not sure how, though."

"Anything else?"

"Some knowledge of the ship they came in. Do you have eyes on anything that could be a grounded vessel?"

"Sergeant Hellax is on it. Last check in was twelve minutes ago. We have eyes on something that's probably it. Brother Saul is mobilizing as well."

"Affirmative. From what I've heard, the Alliance ships in bound."

"Acknowledged. I'll send the _Pallid_ and the Army vessels towards the edge of the system."

Pax clicked the bridge vox off. Their enemy now had a name – logic would dictate that these "Collectors" were the same enemy that had attacked the Navigators while they were in warp transit.

These Reapers would have to wait their turn. The Collectors were due for a showing.

()()()

**New Isanbul colony deployment area (converted grain silo)**

The marines had assembled during the wait in the makeshift deployment garage after they had gotten their wounded to the infirmary and the dead proper burials. Their hearts were heavy as they waited for their commanding officer, but there was one thing that had brightened the mood.

Sort of.

Three of the superhuman warriors (one had left the group, saying something about a report to a Sergeant) had accompanied them into the area, keeping their heads down as they walked through the doorway. To Private Helena Jackson, it was impossible to tell them apart. They were eerily silent in their corner of the room, but Private Jackson knew that it probably wasn't the case inside their helmets. Alliance Marines had armor comms as well, and to outsiders it would appear as if they fought silently most of the time. What really interested her, though, was _what_ they could possibly be talking about.

She looked to her left and found 1st Lieutenant Capana idling next to her. He'd been promoted after the skirmish with the enemy aliens after former 1st Lieutenant Leiland's body had been discovered. It had been peppered with holes, literally stuck to the wall of a bunker by the rounds and her own blood. Helena was a marine – she was used to seeing death. But being promoted _because_ of it was pretty bad. She clicked open a private channel, curious about the Astartes.

"What do you think about them, sir?"

The lieutenant looked up, caught off guard, then shrugged.

"They're…they're really not human."

Private Jackson looked back at the three giants. She could believe that. After all, she'd only seen them in armor. Turians looked like futuristic human racers in streamlined helmets from the old sci-fi flicks she'd seen growing up. The reason she was inclined to believe Capana at face value, however, was because whatever had occurred in the interrogation room had leaked out despite what the officers had done to quench any information. Rumor had it that one of the Astartes had gotten involved, and every one of the alien hostages had been killed. Somewhere along the way, though, someone had spread the story that one of the Astartes had eaten a brain of one of the enemy prisoners. Now, _that_ was ridiculous.

She hoped.

"Sir, one of the corporals in fourth squad started-"

"Corporal Lieu?"

"Um, yes sir. He said that he got it from Gunny Sarge Tremaine, who apparently heard it from one of the officers who went to the interrogation. Actually, that officer wa-"

"Get to the point, Private."

"Well, is it true that one of them ate a brain?"

Capana was silent for a few seconds.

"Like Captain Moore said on the intercom, Private. We got info we needed. That's what this little info session is about. As soon as the Captain makes his merry way down here…"

As if on cue, the door to the silo swung open and Captain Moore stalked in. The Marines all stood to attention in one fluid motion. He walked to the center of the room and turned around to face the Marines and Legionnaires.

"At ease."

Private Jackson found herself trying not to laugh at the outlandish decoration of the Captain's dress uniform. She reckoned that he had close to fifteen pounds of medals on it. How he managed to walk full stride and upright with so much weight on the front of his clothes was beyond her.

"As of six hundred hours today, a detachment from Seventh Fleet was en route via Mass Relay to this system. Seeing as though that update came through fifteen minutes ago, we can assume that they are in FTL. ETA is probably six thirty hours-" he checked his wristwatch, "-which is ten minutes from now."

The marines let out a collective cheer.

"We are not, however, out of the blue. Our friends here, the Legionnaires, have informed me that they are investigating superstructure past the northern limits of the colony perimeter. They've confirmed via comparisons with our sensor readings that it's the same craft that was jamming us earlier today, before the enemy attacked in force."

The Astartes hadn't moved once, remaining in the semi-darkened corner where they stood. If Helena had to guess, that was purposeful positioning. She knew that it had done its job well – she couldn't help but shake off a slight shudder when she looked at one of them, shrouded in darkness with only the dull red of their eyepieces shining out from the black veil which covered them.

"There is also a small detachment of Council personnel traveling with the Seventh Fleet ships. Officially, they're here on humanitarian missions."

He paused as the inevitable question came up. A marine from the front of the group asked it.

"Do we get a Spectre, sir? The only people they seem to send out to us if we're getting screwed is one of them."

Laughter broke out before Moore spoke up again.

"That's all I'm authorized to tell you. I think the Legionnaires have something to add to…to this briefing …?" Moore trailed off uncertainly as he made a gesture towards the Astartes. One of them stepped forward. All the Marines were rather startled when his voice boomed from his helmet so loudly.

"The 25th Expeditionary Fleet stands ready to assist in any capacity. As your Captain has mentioned, we are dealing with the structure to the north accordingly."

There was a pause, as if he was trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to. Helena thought his accent was reminiscent of the native Central Europeans from Earth. It was almost like he wasn't used to speaking English.

"Your enemy calls themselves the Collectors. Do any of you know anything about these beings?"

Helena frowned. There were myths, of course – but not very well known at all. She doubted any of the Marines present knew anything besides the bare bones, so she spoke up.

"Well…they're a myth – or at least, they were. There've been stories forever. For years, all that was really known about them was that they were buggy aliens who sometimes traded tech with Council races. Most of the other shi-" she quickly corrected herself "stuff I didn't believe – stuff you'd find on extranet conspiracy forums. Things about abductions; apparently there was an Asari colony that just disappeared a few hundred years ago. Same with a Turian outpost a little while after that. No one knew what was happening. Reapers were linked to them in most of those instances, too, but we know how that all went down. Brass shot that up pretty quickly."

The giant nodded, then continued.

"We will have to research these…extranet claims. And these _council_ disappearances." He paused. "What are these 'asari' and 'turians'? Are they the names of more worlds in your empire?"

That caught everyone off-guard. Captain Moore offered an explanation.

"The Asari are a council race, as are the Turians, and the Elco-"

"_Alien_ races?" The Astartes' voice seemed a little darker than before. Which wasn't actually saying much.

"Yes..."

"For now we focus on these Collectors. As soon as my brothers report back on the status of the superstructure ..."

He trailed off, putting a finger to the side of his helmet. Private Jackson looked around in surprise.

All of a sudden, the ground shook significantly, and she nearly stumbled to the ground in her armor. Grabbing a nearby box to keep herself upright, she looked up as the Legionnaire spoke again.

"There's been a launch."

()()()

**In FTL, Seventh Fleet detachment (the _Yucatan _[Cruiser], the _Waterloo_ [Frigate]): on the bridge of the _Waterloo_**

"We're two minutes out of the system, sir. Time for your usual address to the crew."

Captain Womack smiled as Lieutenant Jane Newman offered up the reminder and strode over to the ship-wide communications console. Newman swiveled off to the side, stuffing her fingers into her ears. The Captain's speeches were generally known to be dull to the point of extreme boredom. Womack rolled his eyes at her and tapped at the holographic display she was stationed at.

"Attention all crew members. This is your Captain speaking."

He cleared his throat.

"As of 0200 hours planetary time, our colony of New Istanbul was attacked by an unknown enemy. This sort of thing has happened to quite a few colonies out here, past the accepted limits of the Alliance. Command is pretty sure that it's the Geth behind all of it. So we're going to go in and see what the hell is going on. This is the first time that Arcturus has sent out an immediate response team, so we'll be the first ones there. Our mission is to help any survivors and if there's still a fight going on, to end it. I'm putting the ship on full battle readiness, so everyone man your stations. Get ready to fight some Geth, crewmen. And women. Good luck."

The helmsman looked back from his calculations as the Captain closed the intercom.

"That was pretty good, sir. I didn't lose neurons this time around - are you sure you're not taking our advice?"

"Shut up, Milau."

"Shutting up, sir."

The helmsman Milau swiveled back to his panel. Womack chuckled.

"How long now?"

Milau looked at the progress indicator.

"Minus thirty seconds from arrival. Lifting window covers."

There was a humming as the windows slowly revealed the myriad colors of FTL travel. Womack never ceased to marvel at its beauty. In many ways, it was much more beautiful than Relay travel.

"Brace for deceleration."

The ship jolted as the ship dropped out of FTL. Womack nearly slipped down, but managed to brace himself against a nearby crewman's chair. An ensign on the bridge began his post-FTL checklist.

"Green across the board, Captain. Engines are ready to maneuver at full thrust. Weapons are hot. Hull is sound."

He paused.

"Sensors are a bit off, though. Recalibrating."

Womack strode over to the crewman.

"What's wrong, son?"

The ensign brought up the sensor readings on the holographic projector in the middle of the room. Womack's eyes widened.

"My God..."

The rest of the bridge turned as the results of the preliminary sensor pings were displayed. The Captain whipped around.

"Navigation, hail those ships. Weapons, get running - I have no idea what kind of vessels those are, but I don't want them anywhere _near_ the _Waterloo_. Tell the _Yucatan_ to widen up. I don't want to go out in one shot from something akin to a dreadnought's mass accelerator."

The crew fell silent as the readings scrolled through the air.

"Are all hailing frequencies open?"

"Yes sir."

"This is the Systems Alliance Cruiser _Waterloo_, en route to the Alliance Colony New Istanbul. To the dreadnought-class cruisers on approach vectors: Identify yourselves and state your business, or we will fire."

"For what good_ that'll_ do," quipped Newman. No one smiled, because they knew she was right.

Nothing but static greeted them. The ships came closer - closing to just under one hundred thousand kilometers. Womack reiterated his message one last time.

"I repeat: this is the the Alliance Cruiser _Waterloo_, heading towards New Istanbul. Identify yourselves or we will shoot."

Eighty thousand kilometers.

Seventy.

Sixty.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

**Bridge of the **_**Waterloo**_

"Ready the mass accelerator. Target the ship on the right."

The bridge instantly became a hive of activity. Heat readings lit up on holographic displays, projectile vectors were tossed around and molded to mathematical equations, and the ship lurched as a round was loaded into the mass accelerator. Captain Womack spoke on the hailing frequencies one last time as the ships closed to twenty thousand kilometers.

"We will fire once off your bow. If you do not cease your current vector, you _will_ be fired _at_."

He turned to the weapons officer.

"Lieutenant, whenever you're ready."

The officer at the weapons station – Lieutenant Kent – stabbed at the rune, and the ship rumbled as a round tore away from the mass accelerator cannon. Womack looked through the viewscreen and saw the shot close on the ship.

"Impact in three, sir!"

"Ready another round, Lieutenant!"

The entire bridge held their collective breaths as the brightly lit round closed on the massive lead ship. There was a bright flare and a ripple as it impacted.

"Scanners – give me a damage report on that ship."

There was a brief pause before the crewmember at the sensor station replied uncertainly.

"It's…the round's disappeared sir."

"What do you mean?"

"The round was on a trajectory past the bow of that…that _thing._ It's not there anymore."

"What?"

"It's gone, sir. Not here anymore."

Womack's stomach felt like it'd just plummeted through the deck of the _Waterloo_.

"Tell the _Yucatan_ to open fire! Shoot a second round at the middle of the damn thing, now!"

The _Waterloo_ rumbled again as its mass accelerator fired. The entire bridge looked back at the viewscreen, seeing two shots flashing towards the lead ship. By now, all three had stopped in a roughly triangular formation, just sitting there in space. The two mass accelerator rounds were perfectly coordinated by the VIs of the two Alliance cruisers. The first round slipped right in front of the massive lead vessel. Again there was a bright flash as the round presumably impacted. In quick succession, the _Yucatan_'s round slammed into the space in front of the same ship, and the doubled flashes caused the viewscreen to darken considerably. Womack looked to his crewman at the sensor station and voiced his question.

"What now?"

The crewman tapped away at the holographic display.

"They're…they're gone again, sir. I have no idea what happened to them. They disappeared right before impact. I…don't think the flash was from detonation or kinetic force."

Womack slumped backwards in his chair.

"Open a link to Seventh Fleet."

Lieutenant Newman at the communications console pushed at a few sigils in the air, and shook her head.

"I think we're being jammed, sir. All I get is blank air. I can try increasing the streng-wait. Wait."

She manipulated the holograms in the air before her. Everyone bacame deathly silent as a one line message came through. There was an ambient whine embedded in it, as if the message was being broadcast at extremely high frenquencies.

"…this is … Imperial … prepare … to be boarded."

Womack sat up, ramrod straight, staring at the lead ship.

"Sensors – anything on the scans? Incoming ships?"

"No, it looks like –"

Every crewmember on the bridge was flung backwards into their seats as the _Waterloo_'s atmosphere around them ionized exponentially. The hair on Womack's body stood straight up for a second before being pushed flat. A loud crackle issued from nowhere, and there was an impossibly bright flash of light. It was quickly accompanied by a roar, and another flash blinded the crew momentarily. Womack put down his arm, which had been shielding his face. He blinked rapidly to clear the after vision of the flashes. His ears popped as the sound of thunder rolled over him.

"Sensors? Weapons? Anyone? What the _hell_ …?"

He didn't get a chance to complete the question.

There was a giant holding a rocket launcher at his face.

()()()

**Bridge of the **_**Waterloo**_

Womack looked slowly up at the huge soldier, blinking rapidly. Contrary to his first thought, the gun the giant was holding was not a rocket launcher. More like a Mako's turret. It was massive – the muzzle opening was nearly wide as his face. And it was pointed at him.

"Who are you? What the _hell_ are -?" His snarl was cut off as the giant answered in a very loud, animalistic voice.

"Do you want to die?"

The question caught him off-guard.

"What? No."

"Then why did you fire at one of our vessels?"

"Point the … the … gun away from me first."

"No. Answer the question."

Womack inched his head back against the headrest of his chair, pushing it into the fabric.

"We sent out a warning on all general frequencies. We sent it multiple times. And didn't receive a response."

The giant was still for a moment, then lowered his weapon. Womack looked around the giant to the front of the bridge. There was another huge being up front, a meter behind its fellow. It had its own guns pointed at the rest of the crew. Even they outnumbered him five-to-one, there wasn't a doubt in their mind that they couldn't take on a being bigger than even a Krogan warlord in armor. And these behemoths were just wearing dark cloaks of some photoreactive material.

"Who are you?" the giant said.

"If you'd gotten our message, you'd know who I'm am." Womack replied.

"Indulge me."

"Captain Womack, Systems Alliance Navy. You're on the cruiser _Waterloo_, and what you've just done could be taken as an act of war." The captain replied. The pointed conversation was interrupted as an indicator went off on the silent bridge. The ships' VI voiced it aloud.

"Captain, the _Yucatan_ is asking for an update."

Womack looked to the giant.

"You haven't…boarded the _Yucatan_?" he asked.

"Cut off the head and the body dies."

The Captain raised his eyebrows in confusion.

"What?"

The giant didn't answer the question. "Tell the _Yucatan_ what's happened."

"We're not hostages?" Womack asked suspiciously.

"That depends on your point of view."

"Open a link to the _Yucatan_."

Newman nodded quickly and established a connection. The voice of the _Yucatan_'s commanding officer came through the bridge speakers.

"Womack? What the shitting _hell_ is going on?"

"We have a situation, Commander Cellick."

"Tell me something I _don't_ know."

"We got boarded."

Cellick laughed incredulously.

"Sure. And teleportation is real."

Womack couldn't find anything to respond to that with. The giant towards the front of the bridge slowly brought a hand up and motioned it vertically across his neck. Newman caught the gesture and cut the link. The _Yucatan_ listed off the starboard side of the _Waterloo_, slowly traversing towards the bow of the _Waterloo_. The behemoth immediately in front of Womack moved his hand inside the darkened hood of his cloak.

"Who is the weapons officer of this vessel?" he said.

Everyone avoided looking at the giant.

"I am not unreasonable. Tell me and I won't have to show you the limits of my patience. _Now_."

Womack knew it was a lost cause.

"Lieutenant Kent. At the station behind you, to the left."

Kent swiveled around as the giant made one enormous stride towards him, black robes seemingly absorbing the light that it caught. It gave him the appearance of a larger than life shadow, flowing like water from one space to the other.

"Target the _Yucatan_," the giant said.

"What? No way in _hell_ I'm doing th-"

The giant reached out and plucked Kent up off his seat, holding him by his throat. The weapons officer choked loudly, suspended nearly five feet up into the air.

"What are you doing? Let him go!" Womack exclaimed.

The giant lifted Kent up higher.

"Do you value your life, Lieutenant?"

"Yursh …" Kent choked out.

"Defy me again and I will kill you."

"O-ochay …"

He let go of Kent, who dropped down and crumpled on his seat. Womack got up off his seat, the hooded giant turned his head towards the Captain.

"You have _no_ right to treat my crewmen like that. We may be hostages, but we will _not_ go down without a fight." Womack said forcefully.

"I have no intention of killing any of you. I do not need to."

That stopped Womack in his tracks as he was starting towards the giant.

"Lieutenant. Target the space below the left wing of the _Yucatan._"

Kent lifted a shaking hand and targeted the said location.

"Shoot."

"Without loading a round?" Kent voiced hoarsely.

"Load a round and _then_ shoot."

A clunk was heard over the silent bridge, accompanied by a humming. The ship's VI started an auditory checklist.

"Error: targeting location near friendly vessels … overridden. Targeting location."

The humming continued.

"Mass accelerator cannon targeted. Firing round now."

The ship rumbled as a shot tore through space. It blasted past the _Yucatan,_ popping the local kinetic barriers visibly. Instantly, the Yucatan dropped into a controlled trajectory, firing its thrusters to maneuver below the _Waterloo_. A loud beeping rang out on the bridge as the communication console lit up. Lieutenant Newman tapped at a hologram.

"What are you doing?" Cellick's voice screamed out through the intercom.

"I wasn't lying." Womack replied tersely.

"Stop your ship and prepare to move in behind the _Waterloo_." One of the superhuman soldiers interrupted the conversation. Cellick's surprised voice came over the speaker.

"Who is that? Who are you?"

"If you fail to comply, you will be boarded as well."

The second giant made the same slashing motion across his neck like before.

"You have no right to make dema –" Cellick's voice was cut off as Newman shut the intercom off. The giant nodded to the Milau.

"The coordinates are being transmitted over your radio system. Scan and locate them. Follow them. If you attempt to escape, our ships will open fire." He paused. "You will likely not survive."

The giant turned around, stowing the gun on a blackened belt that tied his cloak to his waist. The second giant, who'd made the two cutting gestures across his neck, mirrored the other one and stowed his weapon.

"What the _fuck_ are you?" Womack asked incredulously.

One of the giants turned fractionally towards the captain.

"We are Alpharius."

Womack was flung backwards as the air ionized once again, and a flash of light blasted through the bridge. The thunder rolled through the air again. The Captain struggled up, grabbing his chair for support. He'd been tossed nearly three meters across the bridge back to his seat. The giants were gone. He heard everyone take a collective sigh of relief, and subsequently share looks of confusion. Rarely did a hostage situation end in the captors leaving the ship by _teleportation._

Captain Womack fell into his chair in exhaustion.

"Newman, do you have the coordinates?"

"Yes sir."

"Milau, set a course for that location." Womack stopped, thinking about what to say next. "Let's find out what the hell all this is about."

()()()

**Bridge of the Strike Cruiser **_**Pallid**_**, in orbit over New Istanbul**

Alarms blared all over the bridge. The entire area was doused in dull red lighting as a ship came up from the planet. Pax was staring at the viewscreen intently, watching the ship's progress from his throne. The auspex scans made it out to be some sort of rock – it resembled those lumped greenskin ships. The servitor at the weapons station attempted to lock its target as the ship became rapidly obscured in the atmospheric cloud cover. The crewman at the helm controls wrestled with calculations on his viewing screen.

"The ship is maneuvering to thirty degrees off the shore of the main continent. Moving to adjust."

When Pax had taken control of the _Pallid_, he'd made it known that every update should be voiced. As master of the ship, he wanted to be in control of the situation. If he was making decisions blindly without input from the crew, he was already at a strategic disadvantage. He wasn't like one of the Army ship Captains who spent the majority of their lives hardwired into their ships, but he _was_ Astartes. Excepting maybe Angron's mob, Astartes always fought smart. The average repressed cult might believe that they were diving instruments of the Emperor's Will (a claim he found to be ridiculously stupid, but useful to further in its own right), but he knew that without the centuries of tactical brilliance instilled into him in the training to become an Astartes he was just a glorified Army Guardsman.

"Roll to port fifty degrees. Fire thrusters for point-six seconds. Prepare for lance salvo. Load torpedo bays one through twenty, heat seekers only."

The gravity on the ship shifted slightly as the planet's outlying gravitational pull exerted a small influence before it autocorrected.

"Give me a location on that ship."

The weapons servitor twitched in its harness before replying in a monotone voice.

"Closing to five kilometers. Target located," The servitor paused as an indicator went off. "Enemy ship firing. Impact in five … four … three … two …"

The _Pallid_ shuddered as the shot impacted against its void shields.

"Shield status?" Pax barked.

A crewman at the main power console checked the generators.

"Sir, shield one is at three-quarters strength. Cycling through shields five and six to replace. Generators are green across the board. Shifting remaining power to weapons. Fire when ready."

"Enemy vessel is at three thousand kilometers. Atmospheric interference is null. Targeting projected non-critical locations … Firing." The servitor bucked in its harness.

Pax looked out through the viewscreen displaying the port side of _Pallid_. The Collector ship was clearly displayed for the first time. Its lumpy profile was at odds with the mechanical structures that comprised part of its structure. The Sergeant smiled remorselessly as bright shafts of light intersected the ship. Entire chunks simply fell off the ship. Despite the onslaught, it continued its upward trajectory. Pax voiced a question while still looking at the viewscreen.

"How close is it?"

The servitor was still for a moment, redoing calculations in its head.

"Two point three thousand kilometers. Trajectory is on direct intercept course."

"Helmsman: Yaw eighty degrees counterclockwise. Weapons: prepare for torpedo broadside. Target the engines and all projected fuel line."

There was a thrumming through the hull of the strike cruiser, quickly accompanied by a slight shift of gravity like before. Pax tapped at a screen and a counter came up next to the moving picture of the Collector ship. It dipped down rapidly below two thousand kilometers as the ship came closer.

"Send a message to Jaye. Tell him to prepare boarding parties."

The officer at the communications console nodded and tapped a message away. Pax idly tapped the armrest of his chair, watching the counter tip down towards one thousand. The Collector ship fired again, and the bridge shuddered ever so slightly. The crewman at the power console gave Pax a reply.

"Void shield six still holding at sixty percent. Cycling through. Generator three is running a bit hot – venting now."

There was an audible clunk as vents on the hull of the strike cruiser opened up.

"Targeting engines. Firing in five seconds." Pax shook his head irritably at the servitor's voice. He hated it. It was a facsimile of a true human being. The concept of servitors he liked – the result, not so much.

"Firing."

As the Collector ship passed the _Pallid_, torpedoes tore through straight through the ship and into its interiors. The engines blew out as internal explosions blossomed and scythed through conduits and fuel lines. It slowed to a halt as the _Pallid_ swiveled around and came to a stop behind the ship, engines flaring. Pax narrowed his eyes, looking at the stranded ship.

"Notify the fleet that the engagement is over. Mark location and hold position here. Update from Captain Jaye?"

The communications officer swiveled around in his chair.

"There was an altercation, sir."

Inwardly, Pax groaned.

"What happened?"

"The Alliance ships weren't broadcasting on any of the normally recordable frequencies. They fired on the _Dying Star_ before our ships could locate the signal."

"Any damage?"

"No sir. Their weapons seemed to have had little effect. The _Destroyer of Worlds_ teleported two Legoinnaires onto the lead Alliance vessel. Whatever transpired on the ship – I think the Legionnaires reported its name to be the _Waterloo_ – got them moving towards the Fleet rendezvous point. I think Jaye wants an audience held with the Lord Admiral, seeing as though Imperial forces _did_ end up making an aggressive move."

The Sergeant nodded. Brother Aklys, the de facto commander of the _Destroyer of Worlds_, always had a flair for the theatrical. No doubt it was a signatory move for him. Pax made a mental note to commend him for a daring move like that. Not knowing where precisely the bridge was of the offending vessel (aside from what Pax suspected were a few auspex returns and energy signatures) but still teleporting was a feat in and of itself. Coupled with no receptor homing beacon, it was even more impressive. Unfortunately, he would also have to deal the consequences of such an action.

"Tell the _Destroyer of Worlds_ to take our position here. Make for the rendezvous location with the fleet."

He got up off the chair and took one last, long look at the Collector ship before stalking off the bridge to his quarters.

**Author's note:** if you find that you think Lances should have far more range, then just note that this is a first engagement, and that they had to analyze the ship first, including its trajectory, etc etc etc.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

**Launch bay of the _Waterloo_**

Captain Womack still couldn't believe where they'd been led to.

They'd made all speed to the coordinates given to them. Halfway there, they'd started to receive sensor readings that were, if anything, crazy. Close to sixty ships hanging there in space, the smallest being one kilometer long? As they got closer, they'd realized that it wasn't wrong. It was spot on.

There was a fleet of ships sitting there in space, the smallest being comparable in size to the largest dreadnought of the Citadel Fleet. They all were sleek, but not in the classical sense. They all reminded him of blunt tools of war. They all resembled either maces or swords, bristling with multiple gun batteries. Alliance and Asari ships usually had beautiful curves, molded straight into the hull. These were just armored behemoths with enough firepower to take on multiple Geth ships one on one and win everytime. He had no idea what they fired, but he did know he wouldn't ever want to be caught out in the open against one of them.

They'd stopped and waited in front of the fleet until a pair of agile ships that were half the size of the _Waterloo_ had flown through the knot of vessels and halted in front of the two Alliance Cruisers. It'd taken a while to find the right frequency, but they'd eventually found that they'd been told to get into a shuttle with all the senior officers on board and follow them into a docking bay.

"You set, Skip? Leaving the bay in ten."

The Captain buckled himself in to the wall mounted seats of the UT-24 Kodiak Drop Shuttle as the pilot's voice came over the intercom. He looked to his side, where his M-5 Phalanx pistol rested. He'd never had to use it, save for in training. The senior officers on the shuttle, First Lieutenant Kent (who was still nursing a sore throat) and Second Lieutenant Newman, both noticed the action and looked to their own sidearms. After the previous encounter with this mysterious group, none of them were willing to go into a potential confrontation blindly.

"Let's head out," Womack said.

The Kodiak jolted ever so slightly as it rose from the flight deck and hovered forward towards the open launch doors. As soon as they cleared the _Waterloo_, Womack looked to his senior officers.

"Alright. We have no idea what we're going into, so be on your guard. Don't let up anything about the Alliance or our ships. God knows what they know already, so we're not going to give them more information. Be on your guard. We have no idea what tech they've got."

The pilot's voice came over the intercom, interrupting the Captain.

"We've got...um...two bogeys leading us in, sir. They're transmitting orders to follow, sir."

"Understood. Let's see where they take us."

Womack looked back to his lieutenants.

"If things get hostile, you both know what to do. Don't wait for me."

Newman and Kent nodded nervously. Both had been present at the incident on the bridge. Kent's throat still bore the scars of that encounter. Womack looked out of the window as the shuttle approached the ship they were to dock with. There were many, many large vessels out there. He couldn't even begin to comprehend where all the labor would have come from to produce even one of those ships. The captain adjusted his gaze and found the other Kodiak shuttle lagging slightly behind them. He could only imagine what was going on in Cellick's mind. It was her first real command – she'd been promoted to Captain in some actions against the Geth out on the Attican Traverse, and this was supposed to have been her first shakedown run. Womack supposed that it was times like this that separated the good leaders from the inept.

As he returned to looking at the enormous ships, he fervently hoped that Cellick was the former.

()()()

**Landing Bay thirty-five, _Demon of Ullanor_**

Sergeant Aklys of Fourth Squad, known to the Legionnaires as_ the Wraith_, watched the small rectangular shuttle enter through the void shield, flanked by two Fury Interceptors. The Alpha Legion had requested to be the honor guard of this meeting between universes. As usual, they had not been denied. Personally, he was rather intrigued to meet the Captain who had stood up to Brothers Kull and Vanter. Backbone was something all Legionnaires admired.

The two small shuttles dropped gracefully to the floor of the massive fighter bay. The bay had been cleared out for the landing; all the fighters having been moved to different locations or sent out on sorties around the fleet. The fighter bay's ceiling was nearly as high as an Imperator War Titan was tall, and the room itself was just as wide. The shuttle that was entering the region had four rectangular, mobile engines that directed it. Aklys found it to be an odd design. The shuttles would only ever be able to utilize two engines at once in forward and backward motion – a sacrifice for greater mobility.

The entire side compartments opened upwards, and seven figures stepped out from their confines, hands on their sidearms and looking like they were ready for _trouble_.

Instantly, Aklys came on guard – there was a blue skinned alien with the humans. He looked for the Alliance Captain Brother Kull had identified as Womack in his brief.

"Who accompanies you?" Aklys asked pointedly as the Interceptors landed somewhat less elegantly. Servitor crews and embarkation deck personnel hurried forwards to get the pilots of the Interceptors out of their harnesses.

The captain walked forward uncertainly, evidently caught off guard by the loud question.

"I…if you mean the Alliance Personnel-"

Aklys knew what Rahman had reported concerning the alien races these humans were apparently peacefully coexisting with. He knew what he should do to it. He also knew what Pax had ordered to be done to them, should the 25th encounter xenos.

"I hope my presence is not problematic." The blue skinned alien spoke up after stepping forward next to the Captain.

Aklys turned his hooded face towards it. It appeared to be female, although without knowing more about their physiology it was impossible to discern. The head seemed to be streamlined with tentacles. He found that repulsive.

"It may very well be." Aklys said. "Why are you here? Our understanding of galactic politics here may be incomplete, but we know enough. This is an Alliance matter."

The alien inclined its head.

"That's classified."

Aklys grunted and turned around. Pax had ordered them to be left alone.

For now.

Unfortunately.

"Very well. Follow me."

Oh, they were certainly in for _trouble_, Aklys thought. Even he struggled with what the Navigators had extrapolated about the time and place where the 25th had emerged. He had no idea how these humans (and _aliens_) would react.

"Are you the envoy we're supposed to meet?" Womack asked loudly as the Alliance personnel and the alien tried to keep pace with the Astartes.

Aklys didn't answer the question. He heard quickened footsteps behind him, and fractionally turned his head as the Captain jogged up beside him as they strode through empty hallways, coming ever closer to their destination.

"Why were we brought here? Also – you want to tell me where the hell you scrounged up the largest fleet of dreadnoughts known to the galaxy without anyone noticing? And what happened to New Istanbul, the colony we were en route to? And where are we going?"

Aklys stepped into a grav lift, turning around to see the six Alliance personnel and the alien in front of him.

"You have many questions. If you wish them to be answered, follow me up," he growled.

They hesitantly stepped on to the platform. It rose up without any cables to bolster the upward motion, and Aklys saw several of the crewmen exchange surprised looks. The lift slowed to a halt in front of a large set of doors. They rumbled open to reveal a wide room. There was a table in the middle, with a hologram of the Alliance Colony floating in the center of it. It was nearly fifteen meters long, made of the finest polished wood. Several figures were seated at the opposite end, several very important figures in the 25th: Magos Denthax, Sergeant Pax, Lord Admiral Ajall, Captain Jaye, and General Bolting. The room itself was darkened, only the center of the room being illuminated in harsh white lighting. As a result, the breadth of the room was obscured, and could have been either very small or extremely large. There was simply no way to tell.

Ajall beckoned towards the table. The xenos took the first confident steps forward, and the rest of the Alliance personnel followed. They seated themselves at the far end across the table from the leaders of the 25th. Aklys melted into the darkness behind them. He knew that his action of moving into the dark epitomized what was about to happen in the room.

That was _always_ what happened when you dealt with the Alpha Legion.

()()()

"I'm sure you have many questions. Let me introduce myself. I am Lord Admiral Ajall, of the Twenty-Fifth Expeditionary fleet. The rest of these…men are my colleagues. Sergeant Pax, of the Alpha Legionnaires – " Pax nodded ever so slightly " – Magos Denthax, of the Martian Brotherhood – " Denthax's facial machinery glowed brighter in some sort of response "Captain Jaye, whom you fired upon – " Jaye nodded, but didn't seemed the slightest bit fazed " – and General Bolting, who has a vested interest in these proceedings." Ajall looked expectantly at the opposite end of the table. Womack cleared his throat hurriedly.

"Ahem. Captain Womack of the _Waterloo_. I have with me my second and third in commands, Lieutenants Kent and Newman. Commander Cellick of the _Yucatan_, accompanied by Lieutenants Jameson and Reed."

Womack stopped and looked at the last member of his party, allowing her to make her own introduction.

"I am Lysea K'sine, Spectre."

Ajall looked like he was about to say something before Pax spoke up, interrupting the Admiral.

"What are you?"

"Are you unfamiliar with alien races, Sergeant Pax?" The Spectre asked with an air of indifference.

"Quite the contrary. What do you call yourself?" Pax replied.

"I am an Asari. What are you, under that hood?"

"I am Hydra."

The answer stymied the Asari's questioning, for the moment. Ajall spoke up quickly.

"This is … of no consequence." It almost seemed like it physically pained the man to say such a thing. Indeed, Lysea noticed two things: how it was sounding like Ajall was following a script, and how Pax was seemingly an ominous overseer. "We are here to discuss the events that have taken place over the past day, and to settle differences that are clearly evident."

Fifteen hours ago, we received a distress beacon as our fleet was in transit to a separate location which I will not deign to reveal. Elements from the Alpha Legion made planetfall in response."

Womack frowned.

"Alpha Legion? That's the second time you've used that term."

"I've never heard of such an organization," added K'sine.

Ajall shrugged and jerked his head to the side towards Pax in response.

"They found an enemy besieging the Alliance Marines, and saved them. Upon interrogation, they found that the enemy called themselves _the Collectors_, amongst other pieces of informat-"

"No one's ever been able to interrogate a Collector before. How were you able to do it?" K'sine interrupted. Ajall sniffed indignantly at being cut off.

"_That_ is classified. Regardless, we were able to determine that a number humans were being abducted onto a ship outside the colony limits. This ship was disabled and boarded two hours ago by Imperial Naval teams. They encountered heavy resistance, but were able to retrieve several types of stasis pods containing the civilians. These await in a shuttle to be transported to your vessels. We will provide a short description of our findings." Magos Denthax nodded in affirmation of the last sentence. "Now that we've gotten that out of our way…we have reviewed reports of the incident your two ships were involved in."

The asari seemed unfazed, but Womack and the Alliance members shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"Your attempts to fire at Imperial Vessels were futile. These are simply oversights. Captain Jaye acted accordingly for a first contact situation in deferring to the Legionnaires. This...isn't the greatest of our problems, however."

Even the Spectre seemed surprised at that.

"So…water under the bridge, I hope?" Womack asked. He didn't want to be held hostage again – and there was no guarantee he'd be let free this time around.

Ajall was immobile for a moment, his expression unreadable. He nodded.

"For now."

"What did you mean just now when you said _first contact_?" Lysea asked.

The Imperial envoys all looked at each other dubiously. Clearly there was something at play here.

"What year is this?" Ajall asked in return.

The Spectre was taken aback for a moment before recovering.

"Galactic standard, or do you ha-"

"Terran. Or Earth. Whatever you call it."

"Twenty-one eighty five," Womack said as Lysea deferred to him.

Ajall's expressionless face cracked, and the Alliance members and Spectre thought they saw something akin to horror in his expression.

"Where are you _from_?" Cellick asked.

Ajall was at a loss for words, and Pax turned his hooded face downwards and spoke in a booming voice.

"The thirty-first millennium."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Womack laughed incredulously.

"Right…"

Lysea hid her reaction well. She merely blinked at the revelation.

"We…knew it would be hard to initially comprehend. It was difficult for us to believe as well." Ajall said.

Womack wasn't sure it had sunken in yet.

"So, you're saying…that…" he faltered.

"Yes."

"That's impossible! Is-isn't it?" Womack looked to the Spectre in shock.

"As far as I know, it's not possible, no." Lysea affirmed.

Ajall motioned to the shadows behind Womack. The captain turned around, straining to look behind him as an auburn haired figure was escorted into the room by whom Womack could only assume to be naval armsmen. Womack looked at her suspiciously as she adjusted a purple bandana on her forehead. She strode gracefully up to Ajall's end of the table. Despite her good looks, it seemed as if the men at the table were ... _afraid_ of her. Womack saw them cringe ever so slightly as she came close to them. Womack was still pondering why as Ajall made the introduction.

"This is Chief Navigator Ligaea DeFrant, of House Dualow by birth."

She nodded and started to explain.

"From what our contemporary sources tell us, in the third or fourth millennia Humanity discovered a secondary realm that existed in tandem with the material universe. It was called many things over many thousands of years, but in the thirtieth millennium we generally refer to it as the _Warp_."

"So…this Warp is an alternate reality?" Cellick asked.

"In the loosest sense of the word, yes. It is a physical manifestation of the collective emotions of all the races in the galaxy."

Womack started laughing slowly. It built up to a hysterical, full blown cackle.

"So you're saying that my emotions fuel an alternate reality that…um…does what, exactly?"

DeFrant seemed unaffected by the skepticism.

"It allows us to travel at faster than light speeds. Most of the time. We were en route to a star system not far from here when we were besieged, in a manner of speaking. The fleet was forced to drop out of the Warp after sustaining some … damage."

"How did you end up so, erm, far back in time?" Lysea asked innocently.

"As far as I can tell, we crossed some sort of barrier in the warp and, um, ended up here," Ligaea finished lamely.

"That's it?" The Spectre asked snidely.

"It's difficult to explain, the Warp. I could show you, but you would most likely be killed because it would involve forcing my way into your mind and psychically imprinting an entire life's worth of memories in your brain."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, because you are an alien and because you are a psychic _blunt_ and I have doubts as to whether your mind could handle it."

"Try me."

"Maybe I will," DeFrant snapped.

"Navigator." Ajall's voice cut through the spat. Ligaea took a deep breath and continued.

"Time has no real meaning in the Warp. It is not a dimensional measurement that has standing. Distance and mental will are the only attributes that matter when navigating the Warp. Usually, you arrive at your destination as if in normal FTL travel, but in other instances, the Warp will simply shift you into a different time. You might arrive after or even before you left."

"Weird," grunted Womack.

"The Mechanicum can provide more details on what we call the _Crusade Anomaly_ – the Warp rift that bore us out of the Immaterium and into reality." There was an awkward silence as Ajall ended the explanation abruptly.

"So…what now?" asked Womack.

"We can't exactly _go back_ – it's not possible as far as we know. The trauma would kill many of the Navigators present on the 25th. Even if we could somehow break through the barrier, we wouldn't have nearly enough Navigators left to get any significant portion of the fleet back to where we departed from. In light of this plight, the leaders of the 25th Expeditionary Fleet have agreed that, for the meanwhile, we can lend assistance in the defense against and the hunt for these so-called Collectors. We will station a regiment of Army Troops under the current directive of General Bolting on New Istanbul. In addition, an envoy will be assembled from representative groups of the elements of the 25th and will accompany you to whatever seat of government you have," the Lord Admiral said.

The Alliance delegation nodded, as did the Spectre.

"We'll be landing our own units down there as well. I think I speak for the Alliance and the Council when I say that we are thankful that you were on hand to deal with the situation. We also appreciate the offer for the additional troops groundside, but I don't think they'll be required," stated Lysea.

Womack started indignantly, turning towards Lysea. She had no authority in Alliance matters! Even the Lord Admiral looked surprised at the Spectre's statement, and turned to Pax. The Sergeant unfolded his arms and grasped the end of the table, hunching over it like a hawk. Womack was about to start hissing vehemently at Lysea when the Sergeant interrupted him.

"It _wasn't_ an offer," growled Pax.

"I don't think you're in the position to make demands of an unknown entity." If he wasn't so pissed off at her, Womack would've chuckled at Lysea's snappy comeback.

Pax laughed. Womack flinched in his seat – it was like listening to a Krogan bellow, but in interspersed intervals, like a dog's bark. It was one of the weirdest sounds he'd ever heard. The cloaked giant made a motion with his hand and the lights around the outer perimeter of the room lit up.

"My brethren," Pax announced.

Womack swiveled in his chair quickly. There were twenty giants standing around the table, closer than Womack could ever have thought. The captain was shocked to realize that they were, he estimated, only ten feet away from the table. Each one was clad in dark blue armor. The smallest was easily eight feet tall, and if Womack had to guess, five feet wide in the hulking suits they wore. The helmets had streamlined wings fashioned on the sides that glinted silver in the increased light. They looked like an honor guard – or an execution squad.

"Theatrical much?" asked Lysea. Womack was astounded at her guts.

"No. I am a realist."

"Ah."

"The troops are a token of goodwill, so to say. Fifteen hundred of some of the Imperium's frontline units. This is merely a formality. We do not wish to aggravate the situation further, simply to lend assistance where it is needed. War is not always the answer." Pax released the table and straightened himself. Lysea seemed to be caught off-guard from the last sentence. Womack knew he was – from the size of the armored beings around the table, and the huge weapons they were holding, he'd have assumed that they were made for only one purpose: war.

"I suppose in that case, given your _intentions_, a small detachment may be allowed to station themselves on the surface, along with an equivalent or greater amount of Council and Alliance troops." Lysea narrowed her eyes at Pax, trying to gauge his response before he started it.

"Very well. General Bolting, assemble a team of members from every one of the fifty regiments that are under your command. These specialists will liaise with these other soldiers. If there is a need for more we can address that at a later time. Is this sufficient, Spectre K'sine?"

The asari nodded. General Bolting licked his grizzled lips and sat back in his chair. He looked lazily towards Pax. The Sergeant said something in a language Womack couldn't understand – it almost sounded like a derivative of Latin. He reached down discreetly and tapped at his omni-tool to record the entire sentence quickly; he'd have the _Waterloo_'s VI attempt to translate it later. Any advantage over these beings was one Womack would be very happy to have, even if it was just linguistics. Bolting replied in kind, and nodded slowly. The Captain looked up just as Lysea started speaking again.

"I'm glad we found some common ground, Sergeant Pax. I eagerly await bringing the Twenty-Fifth's envoys to the Citadel Council."

Pax didn't move, his expression unreadable under the hood. Ajall looked almost windswept as he addressed Womack's delegation.

"Well, erm, if everything is finished, then we can have you escorted back to your ships. We will notify you when the delegation and troops are ready – in the meanwhile, you can begin landing your personnel immediately."

Womack dipped his head.

"Thank you."

He didn't receive a reply, and got up. The Captain beckoned to the rest of his crew and Lysea. They walked purposefully towards the doors they had come through. The room, now illuminated, was a thing of beauty: there were streamlined grooves in the walls and ceiling where the lights were embedded, and in the light the dark marble flooring shined extravagantly. It was the finest negotiation room Womack had ever been in – he couldn't even begin to imagine how much it would cost for an Alliance dreadnought to have the same facilities.

The giant doors rumbled open again, and the delegation stepped onto the anti-gravity lift. One of the armored giants was already on it.

"Follow me." The voice filtered through the front of the helmet. Womack felt insignificant compared to this being – he was just glad that its weapon was in a holster and not in its hands. As it descended downwards, Womack breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment there, he had been certain that Lysea was going to get them killed with her talking. Luckily, that hadn't happened.

Yet.

()()()

**Negotiations room, **_**Demon of Ullanor**_

"War is _always_ the answer." Sergeant Aklys snorted amusedly into his throat-mounted vox.

Pax turned towards the sergeant of Fourth Squad.

"Yes. War from the shadows is always the answer," replied Pax.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's note:** I had Ch. 9 and 10 in the wings for about a week (so I have a new three-chapter set for you all starting with 9), had to get Ch. 11 up with 'em though. I didn't think that big of a question mark was cool to leave off on. All I can say is two things: Thank Heaven for Thanksgiving holiday and GO SEAHAWKS! Also, I'd like to thank Dan Abnett for the idea here (not that he'll ever know this existed, haha).

**Chapter 1****1**

**Infirmary on the Alliance Base, New Istanbul colony outskirts, Canyon 12**

"How're you feeling?"

Corporal Daniel Fernham stirred feebly at Private Jackson's voice.

"Pretty good, yourself?" he groaned.

Helena laughed, shifting in her bedside chair.

"No, really. How're you doing? What'd the medics say?"

"You probably don't want to know."

"I do."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I _do_."

Fernham sighed. He liked the Private – she reminded him of his own sister. But she could be very incessant on occasion. He found it annoying.

"Infection."

Jackson was quiet for a while.

"How bad?"

"They gave me antibiotics, but they're not sure whether they're working."

"Why not?"

"Do I _look_ like a med-" Fernham's voice broke down into a series of violent coughs. His whole body shook violently, shaking the bed back and forth. Helena sat bolt upright, calling for a medic. A uniformed orderly rushed over, pressing the corporal down into the bed. He pressed an injector into Fernham's neck and depressed the plunger. The corporal's cough subsided, but flecks of blood remained on his lips. The orderly scanned Fernham with his omnitool quickly, peering closely at the results.

"Corporal, how are you feeling now?" asked the medical assistant.

"The same damn question over and over again. How do you _think_ I feel?"

The orderly chuckled.

"Chief Medic Bronsow will be along shortly. Don't die on us, corporal."

There was an awkward silence between Fernham and Jackson as the orderly left. Daniel looked outside. He narrowed his eyes as he saw a huge figure in armor right outside the infirmary.

"So…who are they, again?"

Jackson twisted around in her seat and peered outside as well. The figure, blackened armor absorbing the harsh white sunlight, was talking to a medical officer. The officer was making exaggerated gestures while the figure remained motionless.

"Them? They call themselves the Alpha Legion. Whatever that is." Helena paused momentarily. "I don't know how much more I can tell you, everything's being hushed up right now by command…"

"I could make it an order."

"You could," she relented.

"I'd rather not."

Private Jackson looked around. The infirmary's square and blandly white interior was empty, save for the orderly at the far end of the room.

"They came down right after you were knocked out."

"Came down?"

"Perimeter marked some sort of asteroid on a trajectory to impact behind known enemy concentrations. It crashed. But it wasn't an asteroid."

Fernham raised his eyebrows as Jackson continued.

"It was some sort of pod. Looks like a tear drop, actually. We couldn't tell what it was while it was burning up in the atmosphere. Until then, we'd been getting pushed back. The grizzlies and makos were getting pounded. We'd have been overrun in a few minutes if they hadn't shown up."

"What happened?"

"A minute happened."

"Then?"

"We had three Collector prisoners."

"Collectors?"

"Yeah."

"Damn. Then what?"

"I'm here visiting you."

The corporal laughed hoarsely, but stopped as his gaze caught the figure outside the infirmary again.

"Jackson…he's looking inside."

The private turned around, startled.

"What?"

"It-he's looking in here."

Fernham started as the two figures outside headed towards the entrance to the infirmary.

"What are they doing?" wondered Fernham.

The two marched in through the doorway. The larger, armored figure barely made it inside – his shoulder pauldrons scraped the frame.

"Private Jackson, what are you doing here?" asked the medical officer suspiciously.

"Just visiting, Major Bronsow, sir."

The light skinned medic nodded after considering the reply for a second.

"I … suppose you might as well stay. Otherwise we'll end up with another rumor," grumbled Bronsow as he reached Fernham's bedside, the huge armored being trailing slightly behind him. Now that the Legionnaire was closer, everyone could see a wicked-looking machine on his left arm – it was covered in needles and fortified flasks. The chief medical officer looked down at his hands before continuing.

"Corporal, I won't sugar coat it for you."

"Hit me, doc."

"You're … well … the antibiotics have aggravated your situation. They're simply not working. I don't know why, but nothing we have is making a dent. The bacterium seems to have a precoded adaptation to everything we've tried."

Fernham's head throbbed as if in sympathetic agreement, he nodded slowly.

"How much longer?"

Bronsow shrugged.

"If we don't give you any medication, maybe a day. I don't know. The rate at which the bacterium is chewing through your immune system is variable, dependent on how many antibiotics we give you." The chief medic seemed frustrated at his helplessness. "I just don't know what do to. I'm sorry, Dan."

Fernham grinned. It obviously didn't have the intended conciliatory effect – his teeth were stained with blood, and Bronsow shifted uncomfortably in response.

"Just doing your job, John. Just doing your job. Like I was doing mine," croaked Fernham.

"I know. Hard to take, still-"

"How were you injured?"

Everyone looked up at the Legionnaire. Fernham coughed harshly for a few seconds before replying.

"I-I think I was covered in alien guts when the medics found me?" the Corporal's voice trailed off into another bouts of cough, this time accompanied by sprays of blood.

"Do we have to do this right now?" asked Jackson worriedly. Bronsow also looked to the Legionnaire. The giant simply ignored them and continued.

"I think it highly probable that enemy physiology incorporates toxins, so as to prevent genetic copying attempts. These toxins are highly advanced by your standards, and through what research my brothers have been able to conduct, I have determined that your current medical levels of technology are insufficient to deal with biological attacks of this sort." Even over the violent coughing, the Legionnaire was able to make himself easily heard in his filtered voice. "There is only one possible solution, based off the likelihood that you will be dead within a day."

Bronsow looked suspiciously at the massive super soldier.

"And that would be?"

"Astartes bodily fluid make-up is, in every way, superior to any humans'. By intravenous inoculation of a measure of my blood, we can save him."

They were all speechless for several moments.

"Look, besides the fact that we have no idea what you even are, this is absurd! There's risk of further infection, then there's the possible incompatibility of his blood type versus yours, and _then_ there's–" Major Bronsow started up indignantly before being cut off.

"There is no risk. His … _phenotype_, as your contemporary sources call it, will initially recognize my blood as foreign and attempt to attack it. The protein markers on my corpuscles will change so his leukocytes do not attack them. It is an adaptation my brothers and cousins all share."

Bronsow opened and closed his mouth wordlessly before shaking his head.

"I'm sorry. I can't allow this. If we had more time, maybe. But not now. There are too many intangibles."

The Legionnaire remained still and did not reply. Helena looked at Bronsow.

"Sir, maybe … maybe it could work. We don't know – "

"No, Private. It's not going to happen. All we can do for the Corporal is … well … make him comfortable." Bronsow looked very miserable at the admission. He turned around towards the orderly, who had until now been standing still, listening to the conversation.

"I need to get some, uh, supplies. Follow me. I'll need help carrying it all. Dan, if there's any next of kin you want informed, I've made sure the extranet uplink station is free for the next half hour or so."

Both hurried out quickly. Helena sat at Fernham's bedside for a minute longer but soon followed them out, checking her omnitool's alerts but looking distraught. Fernham put his head back on his pillow, taking a deep breath.

"Do you believe in a greater purpose, Corporal Daniel Fernham?"

He squinted at the Legionnaire.

"Not gone yet?" The Legionnaire didn't answer. "Fine. You mean in … God?"

The Legionnaire raised his hands slowly and took off his helmet. Fernham was startled to see how truly human he looked – the black hair was at odds with his piercing blue eyes and white skin, but Fernham instantly felt as if a veil of mystery had been lifted. He realized that the facelessness of the Astartes had been putting him on edge. Not that he was relaxed _per se_, even now.

"No. Do you believe in a greater purpose?"

"Aren't they the same thing?"

"Not necessarily."

Fernham pondered that reply.

"What does this have anything to do with me?"

"Everything."

Fernham was thoroughly confused now.

"Look … I don't _really_ have much time left, according to the good Major, who you were just here to listen to. So, as you can probably imagine, I don't really feel like discussing my faith …" Fernham trailed off.

"Do you believe in a greater purpose?"

"Again?" Fernham sighed exasperatedly. "I'm still taking it as belief in God. The answer's yes. I believe in God."

The giant leaned down, and Fernham found himself unconsciously pressing his head into the pillow.

"There is only one greater purpose that you or your God should believe in."

"And what's that?"

"To win at all costs. Against everyone … and _everything_."

The Corporal was put off by the sheer wall of determination behind the Legionnaire's voice. The Astartes' eyes were blue slits now, his mouth a thin line.

"Remember this. Because you embody all that your species fights for. I ask you this: what purpose do you think your God has in store for you?"

Before Fernham could answer, the Astartes straightened and replaced his helmet.

"God or not, Corporal, we all have to continue on our roads. I leave you to yours."

The giant turned and made for the exit. Fernham called out after him.

"But _what_ does this have to do with me?"

The Legionnaire didn't even stop.

Fernham worked his mouth silently for a few seconds before coughing harshly again. He raised a shaking hand to his lips and wiped a trickle of blood off his mouth. The Corporal still didn't know what that'd been about.

But it certainly got him thinking.

As he turned his head to the side, wincing as his a shaft of pain lanced through his abdomen, he wondered what his destiny was.

Or what it could be.

()()()

Private Jackson kicked a crate over violently, cursing in anger. She couldn't believe that Bronsow was just going to let Fernham die like that! It went against everything she believed in as a Marine. Giving a soldier a chance was all that was ever asked for in the Alliance Corps – _nothing more, nothing less_.

But Fernham would ever be given that chance to continue the fight against the Alliance's enemies.

Helena kicked over another crate. Its contents spilled out, prepackaged cans of food rolling out from their compartments. She shook her head in anger. Now, for the first time in her life, she was faced with a dilemma she hadn't been trained to overcome – try and argue with Bronsow for the life of the Marine she considered a surrogate brother, or sit back and watch him die.

Jackson sat down on one of the upended crates, looking out across the cliff upon where the infirmary was situated. A great expanse of grassland greeter her, the sun's light gleaming on the hulls of the vehicles crossing the highway in the distance. The emptiness of the grasslands always filler her with an immeasurable calm. Whenever she would feel conflicted or distracted from her military duty, she'd find a nice view of the grasslands that covered nearly seventy percent of all the landmass of New Istanbul.

"What am I supposed to do?"

The wind blew through the prairie grass, giving the impression of waves rolling across the surface of a great ocean.

"Can I save him?"

The waves continued to move slowly with the wind in response.

Private Jackson turned around quickly as she heard a set of footsteps behind her. The legionnaire who had been in the infirmary was walking out. She cocked her head to the side as an idea came to her.

She got up and started after the Legionnaire with renewed purpose.

She wouldn't let Fernham die.

()()()

Durrow strode forwards, measuring his steps precisely. He knew the human female was following him.

"Um – Legionnaire. Excuse me!"

He stopped and turned around purposefully.

"Private," he nodded.

"You…you said in the infirmary back there that – that you could help Corporal Fernham. How exactly would you do it?"

The Astartes turned his helmeted head down to regard the Private. He had initially thought that she liked the Corporal, but upon further examination it seemed as though she was losing a sibling. Her posture wasn't as heated as someone who was about to lose a spouse, or something similar. She seemed defeated, despite her efforts not to look so.

Excellent.

Durrow kneeled down to one knee, bringing his face level with the Private's. He supposed she was good looking, although it had been many centuries since he had ever harbored any such thoughts about a female human. She had shoulder length black hair, now plastered to her face. As he observed her face, he realized that she looked like someone he had known, a long time ago. The thin lips, the green eyes, and tanned face all reminded him of a woman he had known while growing up in the mountain range the local population called _the Sudlych Andyi_ on Terra.

"Is…is it possible?"

His memories were very blurred from psychoconditioning, but if he was correct, he was remembering his birth mother.

This unnerved him.

"Yes," he answered.

"I – I know Bronsow won't allow it, but I don't have a choice. I can't let him die." The Private looked very conflicted at this admission.

Durrow reached over to his left arm and manipulated a rune on the redactor mounted there. A compartment slid open, and he took out a small syringe. While holding it, he removed part of his right gauntlet, placing it carefully on the ground. Durrow stabbed the syringe into his hand, and the plunger automatically pulled itself outwards as it sensed liquid entering the container. He yanked the syringe out and replaced his gauntlet.

"Take this. The ideal location for injection would be the side of the neck, but anywhere should do." He held the syringe out, and the Private reached out and took it. Durrow placed a hand on her shoulder – she visibly sagged under the weight of it, but remained standing. "Disobeying an order is never easy. In some cases, it becomes a necessity. Remember that the ends _always_ justify the means. Always."

The Private nodded, and Durrow stood up. Everything was proceeding as Pax had predicted.

As the Astartes watched the Private walk towards the infirmary, he smiled.

()()()

Corporal Fernham was sleeping when he felt something prick his neck. He tried to move his arm up, but found it held down by something.

"I'm sorry," someone whispered.

He felt a liquid come rushing into his neck. Fernham's eyes snapped open, and he found Private Helena Jackson standing at his side with a syringe in her hand.

"Wha–" his throat locked up before he could finish the question. A sharp pain built up in his neck, and he struggled to breathe. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as his body started shuddering violently. Just before he lost consciousness, he heard Jackson's whispered voice again.

"The ends justify the means."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**Aboard the _Demon of Ullanor_, Navigator quarters**

Navigator DeFrant blinked at the Legionnaire, shaking her head. She knew it would come to this, ever since the Warp-drop, when she was discovered praying in the Navigator chambers. The Navigator had also been dreading this moment. Now, a Space Marine stood before her in the rectangular Navigator mess hall, where the mutants convened to converse and eat. She had no doubt in her mind that the room's drab gray curtains and Navigator House heraldry banners scattered around the walls would soon be very _red_ and soaked with liquid.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"This book was found with you when the fleet dropped out of the Warp. Are you a member of this…_cult_ of worshippers?"

"I'm afraid I can't sa-"

"Where did you get it from?"

By now, other Navigators had taken notice. A few of them sidled over to Ligaea's table, looking at her and the book on the table. Even in the dimly lit room, the cover was visible to all. The words _Lectitio Divinitatus_ were plastered on the front in simple font. That alone was a death sentence.

"I – I – "

The Legionnaire shook his head.

"Where did you get it from? I want answers, not stutters."

Ligaea sighed resignedly. The God-Emperor didn't like liars.

"On Terra. In one of the outlying Merican Hives. I was born there, and in the undercity there were vendors. Religious vendors. I got it from there."

The Space Marine just stood there, whether looking at the book or at her she did not know.

"What do you know of _faith_? Have you ever met him? Fought with him? Seen him? How can you have faith in someone who quite probably does not even know who you are?" the Legionnaire asked.

The Navigator shook her head. The others were deathly silent – they had all heard rumors of what had happened on the _Vengeful Spirit_. And that hadn't been anything close to this … _heresy_.

"You – _you_ are an Angel. An Angel does what he is told, and he has been told to enforce the Truth. But I know the truth, the real truth. There are things out there, _things that I am not protected against_ _by anything other than my faith_. You may not think He is aware of us. But He is. He might deny it. But the phenomena is real." Ligaea put her chin up. She knew that the Angel was only doing his duty.

His hand flashed before her, and she jerked back involuntarily before she realized that he hadn't touched her. Dwarfed in his gauntleted hand was her copy of the _Lectitio Divinitatus_. The Navigator looked at it and opened her mouth to say her last words.

"I am not ashamed to die for what I believe in, and – oof!" She scrambled to catch her copy as it was thrown back to her. It fell on the ground and she stooped down to pick it up. When she had straightened back up, she realized the Legionnaire had turned around and was striding towards the exit.

"The Emperor protects, Navigator."

Her mouth gaped open as he left the room.

()()()

Brother Ah-Din blinked at his HUD to activate his helmet vox as he strode away from the Navigator quarters.

"Ident six-one-seven-oh-three, calling Scythe."

He waited several seconds before a reply came. The Alpha Legionnaire stepped to the side as a team of servitors filed by, carrying munitions for the laser batteries on the starboard side of the ship. He watched them go as he listened to the reply and continued clunking forward in his armor.

"Scythe. Report."

"The Aquila flies. Global status?"

"The claws are sharpened." There was a pause. "Protocol three remains in effect. Observe and maintain vigilance, Two-three. Scythe out."

Ah-Din heard the click as the vox shut off on the other end. He rounded another corner into a long hallway. The bright orange words on the walls read 'Embarkation Deck Elevator'. The Legionnaire had another meeting to make.

()()()

**Main Embarkation Deck, _Demon of Ullanor_**

Major Braen stood to attention with the rest of his fifty-odd men. The embarkation deck was huge – he'd shuttled over with the rest of the Army men and women nearly six hours ago, and in talking to many of them they were of the same opinion: the deck itself had to be nearly a quarter of a kilometer long; you couldn't see the opposite side of the chamber for a mist of chemical pollutants in the air. Up ahead and close enough not to be obscured by the fog were two Stormbirds, glorious and majestic in their dark beauty, waiting for the Army personnel to climb into them. Pondering what they would do once they got planetside, he looked to his left, seeing his two seconds. If it was war they were being called for, there were no more capable men in the entire fleet to prosecute the enemy.

Captain Skor Murentius of the Sixth Davin Dragoons was looking straight ahead, his shoulder length black hair slicked back over his head. Like all Davinites, he was extremely tall and stringy, and his features echoed the hardships of the world he'd lived on with thin lips, narrow eyes, and a grid of trenches on his face (scars or age lines, Braen hadn't been able to tell).

Next to the Davinite stood Captain Turnio Ulysses. The blond-haired noble hailed from the planet Espandor, in the realm of Ultramar. Unlike the Davinites, who were organized into regiments, the Espandorian military was organized into divisions. Ulysses hailed from the Sixteenth Mechanized Division, a force of over three-thousand men and several hundred vehicles, including two squadrons of the new super-heavy Shadowsword tanks. Unlike his counterpart, he was a medium-height man with straight features that only served to further illustrate his heritage. His sharp green eyes met Braens', and he nodded.

The Major snapped back to attention as a figure materialized out of the mist. The massive armored being stumped towards the assembled men. Unlike most Army corpsmen, he didn't quiver at the sight of the Astartes. He was a veteran – he'd been at the frontlines at one point, with the legendary Ultramarines. He'd seen what they could do, and respected it. Often times, one Legionary could accomplish what even several Chimeras working in conjunction couldn't. The Legionnaires had saved the lives of Braen and his men on more than on occasion. He'd gotten used to feeling assured whenever they were on the battlefield.

But these Alpha Legion … they were _never_ on the battlefield, so he'd heard. You'd be down in the trenches, fighting your way through spidery multi-limbed aliens with your men and you'd be on the cusp of losing the entire war when the Agents of the Hydra would appear out of nowhere and annihilate the enemy in one, fell swoop. It was war sure enough, but war from the shadows. Forever waiting and watching. That type of fighting, quite honestly, creeped the Major out. You never knew whether they were there or not. As the Legionnaire pulled up to a stop several meters from Braen and his men, he wondered whether he would get to experience this reputation first-hand.

"Stand easy, soldiers."

In surprise, Braen dropped his hands to his sides.

"This is not a combat situation. We are here to simply offer aid in rebuilding the military infrastructure of the planet below us. This is the first planet that will be listed under your Army honors. It is called New Istanbul." The Astartes seemed to look straight at Braen, his helmet lens glinting ominously red. "There are many aspects of this world, and the empire it is part of, that will be alien and _wrong_. However, the Masters of the Twenty-Fifth are expecting you to conduct yourselves reasonably. In due time, they will come to learn of the Emperor's mandates, and His commands. Until then, we go along with whatever they say. Any questions?"

"The dossiers mentioned a Greenskin empire we were moving to eliminate. As far as I know, the fleet hasn't been on combat readiness ever since the incidences during the Warp journey. Do we have an update to our mission parameters?" asked Murentius.

"There is. You all know that the Warp is a fickle entity to work with. Time is distorted in the aether. As a result, it seems as if we may have traveled some distance backwards in time, to a time _shortly_ before the Greenskin empire," replied the Space Marine.

The ambient sounds of the hangar bay echoed around the Captain as he was shocked into silence by the truth of their predicament.

"Have we … had any contact with other Expeditionary Fleets?" asked Braen.

"Spotty." The Legionnaire paused for a moment. "Regardless, we will continue with our mission. It is the very least we can do. We will _always_ work to spread the Imperial Truth, wherever and whenever we might end up. That is the mandate of the Emperor, and that is what we will do."

"What can we expect down there in terms of compliance?" the Major asked.

"Naturally, there will be hitches. I will deal with those. Your job is, as always, to follow orders, Major. And your men yours. As long as we keep everything clean, we'll be fine," answered the Space Marine.

Braen nodded and snapped off a salute, which was mirrored by the rest of his men. The Legionnaire nodded and gestured towards the waiting Stormbirds.

"After you."


	13. Chapter 13

**Authors note: **I'm splitting the story into two bits. One goes with the Citadel envoys. The other will take place on New Istanbul. Also, Gothic/proto-Gothic is given within square brackets.

**Ch. 13.1 **

**Briefing room, _Demon of Ullanor_**

"Take you to our leaders?" asked Lysea.

Ajall smiled.

"Why, yes. Take me to your leaders."

"Going in with a fleet like this wouldn't be seen as _diplomatic_, Lord Admiral."

"I'm not going to take my entire fleet to this Citadel of yours. Perhaps one of my smaller cruisers will do."

"I don't think so. You can't accompany us in any of your ships, but we'll take the good Sergeant I met with earlier and a few Army personnel."

Ajall barked out with laughter.

"You think we're that _stupid?_ I should have you and your ships blown to pieces right now!"

Laughter came over the radio in response.

"And risk a galactic war you're not ready for?" snorted Lysea.

"You are _nothing_ in the face of the Emperor's Armies, you piece of xenos filt –"

"We agree." Pax cut in. "We'll shuttle over the committee in three hours' time."

Ajall's eyes bulged as he ground his teeth furiously. He slammed his hands against the table he was seated at. The Sergeant shook his bare head in warning.

"Fine." Ajall cut the link and leaned back in his padded marble chair. He surveyed the table at which he sat – General Bolting was seated at his left, and Sergeant Pax at his right.

[What the _hell_ was that?] barked the Lord Admiral.

[_I_ call the shots. _You_ follow my lead. Remember your place, Ajall.] replied the Astartes.

[I have to agree with the Lord Admiral on this one, sir. What was that?] asked Bolting.

[I need you to send some men to Earth. We need to establish a presence there first, of all things - granted we catch some of their representatives on this Citadel. That Council the alien was talking about can come later.] Pax tapped an armored finger against the table. [Also, for all we know, we could be walking into a trap if we don't agree.]

[Send men to Earth?] came Ajall incredulously. [We don't even know if it's in the same position as it was when our star charts were created – ]

[It is. We can't get bogged down dealing with these aliens, Admiral. We have to take initiative.]

Ajall sighed. [Fine, Sergeant. We do it your way. Who will you want to send?]

[The Titan Legions and three Regiments. A show, and a warning,] replied Pax.

[I'll send the _Destroyer of Worlds_ and her cohort there as well.]

[Wise. Has Denthax made any progress on this _extranet_ of theirs?] asked the Legionnaire.

[Some. It wasn't designed to be wholly accessible by hard-links that we have. However, we've determined that this human _Systems Alliance_ is the primary body of government for our kind in this universe. No doubt we will meet one of their ambassadors on this Citadel, whereupon we might take up the issue of our station upon the untarnished soil of the homeworld.]

[I'll take Denthax along with me to the Citadel, then. Perhaps he will be able to discern something with closer proximity to the technology itself.] The Space Marine's finger continued tapping against the table. [If there aren't any more questions…]

[Who's the talk-team?] asked Bolting.

[First Squad will accompany me – they've just returned from planetside on New Istanbul. Denthax, plus whoever you are willing to give me in special operations capacity, General.]

Bolting nodded thoughtfully. [Espandorian military could use some experience. Five men sound good?]

[Yes.]

[There's a catch, sir.]

[Indeed?]

[They weren't sent down to the colony because of disciplinary issues.]

Pax's dark eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips slightly.

[Anything to do with the Warp incursion?]

[They were part of a detail team when we dropped out. Geller fields on their ship blew out completely – their divisions took significant losses to those damned creatures. Their team blew up the entire Navigator quarters. As it turned out, there _was_ some sort of open gateway in there, but what they did was still against orders. I only deal with high-level disciplinary actions, and I realized what this fiasco has been about well after the fact, otherwise they'd have been given medals.]

The Space Marine was silent for several moments before answering.

[I'll take them. Anything else?]

[When is the fleet going to deploy?] asked Ajall.

[As soon as we have this Alliance's cooperation, you will be spread into defensive groups in human space.] Pax got up off his chair, the servos in his armor whirring. [I leave in three hours.] He clasped his fist to his breastplate in salute. Ajall and Bolting got up and mirrored the salute as Pax strode out of the chamber. After the Space Marine had left, the Lord Admiral looked dubiously at Bolting, who shrugged.

[I don't like how they operate either, but we don't have a choice.] Bolting said in way of a reply.

()()()

**Thunderhawk _Glory Eagle_, troop hold**

Pax spared a glance at the five Imperial Army men. They were nestled in their own compartment with a sixth figure – the Magos Denthax, visible by the various mechadendrites waving around in front of him – closer to the cockpit, and conversing about whatever it was that mortal men conversed about. He looked away at his own First Squad, and weighed the decision he was about to make against his orders. Orders handed down to every Legionnaire by none other than the Emperor himself.

Orders that had been given in another place, in another time.

Orders that, Pax knew all too very well, were designed to protect against a threat that, in essence, did not exist in this universe.

"Durrow. Feyr."

The Legionnaires' heads jerked up as they was addressed. Pax heard two clicks over his helmet vox. He blinked at a dull green icon on his HUD, and a series of clicks followed – open squad channel.

"You all know where we are. And _when_ we are."

Silence. Good.

"You all were there at Nikaea with me. You know what the Emperor said. You know we would _never_ betray him. Because we _knew_ why. _Why he would order such a thing._" He turned in his harness and looked at all of his squad members in succession. "The scenarios have changed. Daemonic possession is not a risk here. Nor will it be.

The Warp Currents will once more guide the Hydra."

The Legionnaires nodded briskly – Durrow and Feyr somewhat less so, however.

"I do not make this decision lightly. Should we ever make it back, you will relinquish your positions as psyker-regulars. I trust you both to watch over each other closely. At the slightest sign of

possession – "

"Execution protocols." Durrow cut in. "But are you sure about this? You know what Ajall's Navigators felt – _he is here_."

"Yes. He is here. A twenty-eight thousand year younger version of him."

Feyr shook his head.

"The currents of the Warp are known to him. He sees all roads, but none past the dark of Lorgar's folly."

"We won't be able to hide anything from him, Pax. You know this," added Rahman.

"Ours is a new road, one yet to be forged. He will understand, if he chooses to reveal himself to us. If not, then we await his judgment.

"I reinstate you both – Durrow, Feyr – to the status of psyker-regulars, effective immediate."

Silence. The Thunderhawk rumbled as its engines fired off. Pax shut off the vox-link to his squadmates from his HUD and opened a link to the Thunderhawk's cockpit.

"Pilot, have you identified the coordinates?"

"Yes sir. Whenever you're ready."

"Let's move."

()()()

**CIC, the _Waterloo_**

Captain Womack stood at the airlock to greet the Imperial delegates anxiously. His last encounter with them hadn't gone very well, and he was eager to get this one over with.

"Newman, how much longer?" he asked.

"They're docking now, sir," came the reply over the ship's intercom. In affirmation, the _Waterloo_ jolted as its airlock was engaged. Steam issued from the frame, before the door rotated slowly and rose upwards.

The other ships' interior was, to the Captain's eyes, rather gloomy – most of it was dark grey, illuminated with only strips of blue lighting. There was a long hallway running parallel to the _Waterloo_'s CIC, connected by a large airlock to Womack's ship. He readied his omni-tool: he'd had the _Waterloo_'s VI run a diagnostic on what little of the language he'd been able to record while on the _Demon of Ullanor_ (a name he still couldn't figure out), and it had developed a working translation program. Hopefully, he'd hear what they were saying in his ear as they were speaking.

Several figures materialized out of the dark interior. Five armored men came through first, walking through in single file. A tall, spindly robot strode in behind them. Womack peered around the group into the gloom beyond, and saw a huge figure silhouetted against the lights. The Astartes walked down the short ramp connecting the two ships and hunkered down to squeeze through the airlock. His armor screeched as his shoulder pauldrons barely made it through the narrow opening. He straightened as he made it and stepped onto the _Waterloo_'s deck, holding four gauntleted fingers up.

Womack stepped back as the five soldiers and robot sidled forwards to make room. Four more giants came through the airlock in the same fashion as the first. They assembled in the middle of the triangular CIC, in front of the Captain's Chair but behind the navigation and weapons consoles, drawing stares from Womack's crewmen. The Captain cleared his throat to speak.

"I am Captain Womack, of the SSV _Waterloo_, Systems Alliance Navy." He held his right hand out. For several uncomfortable seconds, no one took initiative, until one of the armored soldiers clasped Womack's hand.

"Olen Major Dunlye. Taistele puxna per Diapente Espandorian Veneratio tutelum divortius."

He smiled and nodded as his omnitool's voice modulator sounded in his ear. _Closest approximation: __I am Major Dunlye. Taistele I do for Fifth Division veneratio Espandorian._ He winced as he heard the program and responded. "That's great, son. Nice to meet you."

The soldier, Major Dunlye, looked at him blankly. His pale white features were arrayed in confusion. One of the giants looked at the soldier and rattled off a quick sentence in the same language Dunlye had spoken in. The brown-haired Imperial Major nodded in Womack's direction, looking somewhat reassured that communication between the parties wouldn't be a total breakdown.

"Denthax, Magos, Brotherhood of the Cog. Specialization Machinatory. Conversational: Your dialect is curious, Captain Womack. Conversational, informational: Current databases place it at a pre-Strife version of Merican Gothic, still used in many parts of Terra in the thirtieth millennium."

The Captain turned towards the robot in surprise. He hadn't expected a naturally male voice from it.

"I – what? Databases? Merican?"

"Explanatory: Contrary to outward appearances, I am still quite human. Intellectually speaking, of course." Several long mechanized tentacles waved around in front of the hooded being. They moved fluidly, as if controlled by thoughts, and almost seemed to taste the air around them.

"So, you're not an AI or a robot ... or something?"

The Magos shook his head.

"Indignant: No."

The giants, who were standing ominously to Womack's left, seemed to give no indication that they were going to talk to the Captain. Womack glanced at them before holding his arm out before him, towards a walkway lined with floor lights that extended past the Galaxy Map console.

"If you'll come this way, my Marines will show you to the temporary guest quarters."

The soldiers walked off in front of Womack. Denthax, the robot-human, fell into step with Womack. The Captain felt the Astartes start up behind them.

"This ship, Captain. I was only able to peruse a part of your extranet, but I believe it utilizes what you call a _mass effect drive_?" asked the Magos.

"Ah, yes. I'm sure my head engineer will be willing to give you a tour – the journey to the Citadel will take around six to seven hours."

Denthax's hooded head bobbed up in down in semblance of a nod. Several of the ensigns at the heat monitoring stations shifted out of the way as the party made their way to the lower deck access stairs.

"Grateful: I would appreciate that. Explanatory: As a member of the Martian Brotherhood, I am somewhat curious about new technologies." He looked to his left and peered at the Galaxy Map as he walked by. "Query: is the hologram fully interactive?"

The Captain nodded.

"We use a console at the top of those stairs there to access parts of the Galaxy. I usually don't use it, because I have a Navigations officer, but on occasion I'll take a peek at it."

Womack stopped in front of the door, and addressed the rest of the Imperials.

"If you'll head through this door – " he looked at the Astartes; once again, they would have to squeeze their way through an opening not designed for people of their size " – our resident Marines will show you to your quarters. I'll send one of the crew down to see how you're all settling down in about fifteen minutes. If you'll excuse me, I have to ready my ship." The Captain nodded and watched the delegation walk (and screech) their way through the door. This time, in translation, the Magos spoke to the soldiers as he strode through the door behind them. Womack sighed as it closed behind them, and turned around, rubbing his lined face wearily.

"Uneasy, sir?" asked Newman from her console several meters away.

"Hell yes."


	14. Chapter 14

**Authors note:** I give you this chapter on the eve of the release of ME3. Can't wait to play it!

**Authors note 2**: Bioware has fucking inspired me to make a better ending than the shit they provided. I aim to one-up them. I wanted to finish the Milky-Way/Reaper War, and good ol' corporate greediness and laziness didn't let me (no spoilers, but damn...I remember reading an interview on ME3 a while back - they were kicking themselves on the myriad number of ways ME 1 and 2 went as far as every choice was concerned. Let's just say they kicked the bucket on this one). So here's to war, and nothing but! FOR THE EMPEROR.

**Chapter 14**

_**Waterloo**_** crew deck**

Magos Denthax sat on a chair in his room, looking out through the viewport. There was a moving blue haze outside, as if the ship was wading through uncharted waters. This interested him. The few times he had looked out a shuttered and filtered viewport during FTL travel, he'd always seen the bleak redness of the Warp. To his unimaginative eyes (for he thought such emotion to be pointless – there was, after all, only the promise of scientific discovery), he saw nothing but random swirling and currents. The mere fact that it was more chaotic than ordered irked him. He had wished, or rather he'd _stored_ the thought in his databanks as a possible goal, that he could change the Warp. Perhaps, one day, it could become fluid and beautiful like this new form of travel. Blue was a good color – subjectively, of course.

Denthax's mechadendrites perked up as a thought flashed by his face on the faint green noosphereic interface. He rotated the spherical HUD that rested in front of his natural vision and checked the time: he'd been in the room for thirty six minutes. He logged his thought cycles for later analysis. Perhaps they contained some subconscious insight on his current projects – he made a mental note (literally) to compare his thoughts to his basic psychology routines. Thirty six minutes … approximately fifteen point three six standard Terran hours left on the journey. He rotated the noosphere again and returned to the thought that had come to him.

+Ah, yes.+ he blurted out in machine code. Denthax didn't mind talking to himself. It often kept him company, when he wasn't working with his techpriests on the locations of new STCs, or other pressing concerns like that.

The _Extranet_.

It fascinated him. He had ranked it second on his list of importance for things he had to do outside of the Ark Mechanicus he was on while with the Twenty-Fifth.

The Magos got up on his feet, dendrites waving around in the air and noting even the minutest changes in cabin pressure, air quality, pollutants, and toxins … among a myriad number of other things. He strode towards the door, and it opened. He peered into the hallway – there was a guard with a sleek, arched weapon at the right end of the hallway, but no one else. To his left were four more rectangular doors; the Espandorians had gone into those. There were three other doors to his right, but he didn't know whether Pax and his men had gone into those. Maybe they had, maybe they hadn't; Denthax had told the Sergeant that they'd probably need larger accommodations for genetically enhanced supersoldiers like the Alpha Legionnaires. Another thing to check – he placed it near the middle of his list.

Denthax stepped out of his room quickly, the door shutting smoothly behind him. The marine to his right looked up from whatever he had been doing on his visor. In seven trillionths of a second, he accessed a database on courtesy actions and selected one. He turned to face the Marine and waved – for good measure, he waved his dendrites, too. The Marine shrugged and returned to viewing something on his visor. Denthax went left and crossed into another hallway. The signs in proto-Gothic said 'mess hall'. He logged that in his memory as well, and followed the signs. He passed various Alliance personnel, noting how they all paid him little to no heed. Perhaps robots, or alien lifeforms in general, were more common here? Ah. Another question to log.

The Magos walked into a large room – in comparison to the rest of the ship, obviously – with a food-laden table in the middle. Several crewmembers were sitting at it, eating and chatting amicably. Others yet were standing in line for their portions at an enclave to the Magos's right. He sidled up to the table and opened an external vox channel.

"Ahem." The throat-clearing sound was something Denthax was very proud of – he thought it added an air of importance to his sentence. His colleagues thought it unusually _human_ of him to keep such a remnant of his flesh-life, but he always explained to them that paying homage to the past was very, _very_ important. "Query: do you know anything about this Extranet? Explanatory: I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could render me assistance on this matter."

Several of the crewmen and women turned around to regard the Magos. One female crewmember looked at her fellows, shrugged, and got up.

"Follow me."

She wiped her hands on a napkin – made of paper, noted Denthax – and started off towards the far end of the mess hall. The Magos ambled along after her. His noosphereic bubble analyzed her – shoulder length blonde hair, green eyes (no augmetics), slightly upturned nose (possible organic weapon hidden under there), medium weight (124.3, plus or minus half a pound), no side-arm. He scrolled through various conversation options quickly once he'd discerned that she wasn't a threat.

"Idle/Conversational: I am Magos Denthax. How has your day been so far?"

She peered up at him as they walked through a lighted hallway.

"Fine, so far. Thanks for asking."

"Off-hand: it is of no consequence."

They continued towards what Denthax discerned to be the rear of the ship for a while in silence. Finally, the female crewmember spoke.

"So, what are you under there? Quarian?"

"Query: what is Quarian?"

"They're reptilian ali-well, just look them up on the Extranet."

"Excited: that I will."

They'd walked down a short flight of stairs and past the main crew quarters before she spoke again.

"Why do you talk like that?"

Denthax waved his dendrites in confusion. "Confused: like what?"

"Like that."

The fact that it took him more than two seconds to decipher the meaning of the question annoyed him greatly. He stored the question in his database, so that he could answer similar questions in the future with increased efficiency.

"Informative: members of my organization do not usually speak as normal humans do. We speak in machine code, binary, and there is no tone differentiation in our language. Therefore, we require clarification. Question: does my habit bother you?"

She shrugged as they came to a closed door with an installed keypad and stopped.

"Can't you modify the tone when you're speaking?"

Denthax thought about that and adjusted his vox output accordingly.

"I see. I will attempt to restructure my normal communication techniques. I thank you for your insight."

She nodded vacantly as she typed in an alpha-numerical code: b-2-5-a-6-1. Denthax logged that in his memory, too. Perhaps it would come in useful later.

"The terminal is right in here. We don't usually use it – that's what omnitools are for, I guess. You know the way back?" she asked.

"I do. I did not catch your name."

"Newman," she replied as she turned around and walked back towards the mess hall. Denthax watched her until she disappeared around a corner. He walked into the dark room. Lights flickered on as he approached the console opposite him.

+Interesting.+

There was no plug-in conduit for his dendrites. The old-fashioned way would have to do.

Denthax looked at the keyboard, memorizing every button on it. He found one with a circular logo on it and pressed it. The screen flickered on, and brought up a browsing window. This type of graphical user interface was an oddity in Denthax's line of work – he had only encountered similar things back on Mars, when cataloguing ancient technology that had been used millennia before. He nodded sagely at realizing the fact – he _was_ back in time, after all.

He started jabbing at the holographic keyboard with his spindly metal fingers. _Query: Captain Womack, Waterloo_. He pressed the 'enter' button, and a list of results came up. He saw one that was from somewhere called _Alliance Net_, and selected it. A bio of the Captain popped up – the screen was apparently a Systems Alliance official military net. In a blink of an eye, the Magos had read the entire bio. _2172 – member of Human diplomatic team to Quarian Flotilla._ _2175 – awarded medals for actions against pirates in Council Space. 2180 – given command of frigate Waterloo. 2183 – forwarded to Fifth Fleet, took part in Battle for the Citadel, awarded naval honors for actions in destroying two Geth frigates. 2184 – part of Seventh Fleet operations in Terminus Systems against remnant Geth activity._ Denthax logged this information in his memory – perhaps this would be useful for Pax, when the Magos got back to his quarters. He flicked to the search page again by stabbing at a key labeled 'back'. He typed in _Quarian_ and selected the first search result. He blink-memorized the page. He clicked on the in-page link for _Geth_, and blink-memorized that. Then came _Protheans_. _Ilos_. _Saren Arterius. Commander Shepard. SSV Normandy. The Citadel. Battle of the Citadel. Terminus Systems. Earth. Mars. Pluto. Charon Relay. First-Contact War. Omeg-_

"Magos?"

He stopped blinking furiously and turned around. Captain Womack stood behind him, in the doorway, looking at the Denthax.

"Captain. Lieutenant Newman took me here to observe this phenomenon you call the Extranet. It is most enlightening."

Womack nodded. "She told me. Sorry I couldn't get free earlier – duties to the ship and all that."

"I sympathize, Captain. Often, I will spend months non-stop on ancient technology, while paying no heed at all to my minions."

"Ah…right. I'm, um, glad you can identify with my responsibilites." Womack cleared his throat quickly. "You still up for that tour of the engineering deck?"

Denthax crossed off the Extranet on his list of things to do. Finally, his first listed item was at hand. The tour.

"Of course, Captain. I am most gratified for this opportunity. Seeing old technology is one thing, but observing it at work is another entirely."

Womack stepped off to the side, and gestured down the hallway.

"If you'll follow me…"

()()()

_**Waterloo**_ **cargo bay**

Durrow and Feyr were huddled in the corner of the cargo bay, talking in low voices about their newfound freedom. It was a point of concern for both of them, but neither could really find fault with Pax's logic.

[We don't have psychic hoods with us. They were all destroyed following Nikaea,] mused Feyr.

[Don't need them. Not here. Both of us have felt _nothing_.]

[There is something wrong about it, though.]

[Yes.]

Feyr took a quick glance around the bay.

[No Eldar.]

Durrow shook his head in agreement. [No Eldar.]

[This … complicates what we know.]

[The Warp rift may bleed through, without their psychic measure in place.] Durrow narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. [We need materials. I cannot use my powers without a psychic dampening device. It will blunt our efficiency, but it is the only path available to us.]

[I'll talk to Pax about procuring our supplies.]

Feyr backed up, away from Durrow, and strode off to find the Sergeant. Durrow leaned down and sat on the ground, his armored back leaning against the walls of the ship. If the Warp started to bleed through … an entire corporeal manifestation of the future Warp would be born, and the psychic echo would blast through at least this entire sector of the galaxy. Many even slightly Warp-attuned humans would be … _reborn_, for want of a better word. Worlds would be drowned in blood. War would reach new heights. Heights that Durrow doubted these naïve humans had seen, or would ever see in their lifetimes.

He stared at the four-wheeled vehicle parked in front of him as an idea came to him. He clicked his vox three times, and waited for a reply.

Contingency plans called always called for … desperate measures. This Warp rift might prove to be very useful.

Durrow smiled as he heard a one vox-click reply in his ear.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's note:** debated whether to break into two 1.5 k chapters or not. Decided not to. Whatever. Edit: look at the bottom of the page for a clarification after you've read the chapter...

**Chapter 15**

Pax looked over his steepled fingers at Feyr.

[Denthax may be able to help you procure the supplies you need. I hear he has developed quite the liking of the Extranet they use here.]

Feyr looked out the window of Pax's room, the blue and reddish swirl of FTL travel glinting off his dark eyes. [Intel?]

The Sergeant pondered what to say for a while before answering. [We know our enemies in this universe. Synthetics, mainly, plus these _Collectors_ we fought with earlier. If their tech levels are anything similar to what we've already faced, this will be the easiest compliance we've ever faced.] He perused Denthax's encrypted message again. [These Reapers are…mostly unsubstantiated rumor to these people. What happened on the Warp journey wasn't coincidence, though – and no other race in this misbegotten past has that type of potential. It's worth looking into, even if the only info Denthax found was on a so-called conspiracy theory forum.]

[Allies here?]

[There's one man. Denthax's intel lists him as officially dead, but there have been sightings. Stalker is on it.]

Feyr frowned. [I've never liked him.]

Pax shrugged. [He gets the job done.]

[Agreed. Mission protocol?]

The Sergeant thought about that one, too. [Green light, Specialist.]

Feyr subtly noted the change in rank. [Yes, sir.] The psyker-warrior turned and left the room, leaving Pax in silence. The Sergeant looked back down at the paper copy of the report that Denthax had sent him and scrutinized every detail there yet again.

Oh, yes. There _certainly_ were interesting tidbits here …

()()()

"So, what kind of FTL drives are installed in your ships?"

Denthax continued to peer up at the circular drive core. His noosphere was detecting some sort of energy field emanating from the sphere.

"Warp-drives. We utilize a secondary reality to speed travel up to FTL speeds. Your drives, however, seem to operate on the primary plane of existence. FTL travel is, as you know, mathematically impossible, unless –" Denthax missed the ability to purse his lips here " – you could make the ship lighter. Very, very light."

Womack nodded in affirmation. "We discovered a new element, coming on nearly fifty years ago, that emitted a field that could be manipulated such that anything within the field could be lighter. Or heavier. Or as a debris shield. Or as … well, the point is, _element zero_ as we call it, can do all that for us."

"Very useful." The Magos continued to _think_ his notes onto the noosphereic interface. "Element zero is useful in projectile-based ship weaponry?"

"Not only. It's revolutionized the way ground combat works too – or it _did_, before some idiot CEO of one of the weapons manufacturers decided that thermal clips were better than near-infinite ammo…"

Denthax transcribed Womack's mumbling at the end, too. The Magos hadn't gotten to his rank on good looks, after all – he was an attentive and studious master of knowledge. Not that his outward appearance mattered. The Mechanicus didn't really put any stock into that for its own members.

"So these manipulated fields can also act as shields, correct?"

"To a degree. They can protect against physical projectiles, but they'll eventually break down."

"What about directed energy beams?"

"Not so much. Calibrated correctly, they can take up some of the slack, but they'll chew right through shields anyways. Ablative armor was invented for a reason, I suppose."

Denthax opened up a new note 'page'. Vulnerable to lasers. Interesting, very interesting.

"Thank you for the tour, Captain Womack. You have been most hospitable. I only hope I can be the same, one day, on a Mechanicus Forge Ship. I think you will find them to be quite … expansive."

The Captain smiled. "We'll be at the Citadel in a little under an hour. It was good having you on board, Magos."

Denthax bowed his head. "The honor was mine, Captain."

()()()

_**Waterloo, **_**Reappropriated Crew/Guest Quarters**

[I don't trust these Alpha Legionnaires. Back home, Captain Dionysis would always give _them_ as a bad example … of effective warfare without stabilization. He was right.]

Dunlye sighed and made a move on his chess board. [You could make that argument about the Lupercal's legion as well, Major. We are blessed to have Lord Guilliman's sons watching over us.]

[True.] Major Kewell prodded one of his pieces forward. [I never got into regicide. Needed to feel the pieces in my hands.]

[Agreed.]

The game continued for several minutes, both sides tentatively probing the others' defenses. Finally, Dunlye made an aggressive move towards Kewell's king.

[What was Espandor like when you left?] asked Dunlye. [It's been three years for me since I last saw the homeworld.]

[The northern forests have reduced in size, due to the ever increasing logging operations. Thankfully, Dionysis was able to push for compensatory forestry near the equatorial regions. Damn bureaucrats just want to please the Army with increased production.] Kewell countered Major Dunlye's foray with a few sacrifices, and continued to stay on the defensive.

[Odd. I'd never have thought that our own people would be selling their world out.]

[Only to have an outsider save it. I know.]

Dunlye's pieces took a heavy toll on their opponents, scything through defensive formations and smokescreens until only a few of Kewell's pieces were left - and none guarding his most important one. Kewell blew air out of his mouth in frustration and tipped his king over in defeat. He leaned back in his chair, scratching his face absently.

[It's three games apiece, then. I can't wait for the next match,] said Kewell.

[How are the rest doing?] Major Dunlye asked.

[Terrio and Rewen are at the mess hall, last I heard. Gurne's probably sleeping. That's all he ever does.]

Dunlye looked out the window of his quarters, nodding. The blue haze outside increased in intensity before disappearing entirely. Replacing the hue of FTL travel was a nebulous blob, dotted with vessels that surrounded a huge superstructure. Both Majors got up to peer through the window.

[That's one hell of a space station…] murmured Kewell. Dunlye could only shake his head in agreement. Both were amazed at the same thing – they were going to dock with the biggest free-standing structure either of them had ever seen in their lives.

()()()

**Bridge, the **_**Waterloo**_

Dunlye stared through the bridge windows, pondering the Citadel's size. The only things he'd ever seen that even came close to that size were the pict-captures of the drydocks and star forts that inhabited the space above Macragge. Those were sprawling and linked, though – this was one whole station. And that wasn't even the most impressive part; just a few moments earlier, Denthax had inquired about a Battle of the Citadel, and Dunlye's mouth had dropped open when Lieutenant Newman had informed the Magos that the arms could close at a moments' notice. Apparently, it had impressed the Magos too, because he fell silent and started whirring softly after he'd translated Newman's tidbits to the Major.

Newman tapped and swept away at the holographic interface before her, talking as she worked.

"We're clear to dock, Bay D-30. There's a special cab waiting to take you to the Citadel Embassies. There'll only be room for one of the…um…Alpha Legionnaires." She shrugged apologetically. "We don't usually make cabs your size."

The Legionnaire nodded. "Weapons?"

The lieutenant stopped what she was doing and looked the Astartes up and down, appraising his armored form. "The sword might be fine. Just tell them it's ceremonial and keep it sheathed. I don't know about the guns, though. The Major here could probably take his handgun there."

Dunlye looked at the Legionnaire, who was staring out at the looming spaceship docks. The Space Marine narrowed his eyes for a moment, then lowered his head and snapped his helmet on. His armor was as entirely black as ever. In contrast, his helmet was rather decorative – instead of the standard vox grille in front, it was sculpted forward to an elegant vertically-oriented edge with two crimson wings sweeping back behind the helmet. Despite that, Dunlye found the darkened eye-pieces rather unsettling; they gave the appearance of having dried blood smeared over them. Knowing the Alpha Legion, Dunlye didn't doubt that it could be possible.

[Let's move. I do the talking, unless you have something _important_ to say, Magos,] said the Legionnaire. Denthax nodded. Dunlye looked at the Space Marine as he turned to the Major.

[Follow my lead, and keep your eyes open. Keep your laspistol.]

Dunlye clicked the holster shut over his gun and followed the Space Marine off towards the airlock. The Major turned as the Magos fell into step with him.

[I've been testing a translation program that is compatible with our voxes. Here.] Denthax handed Dunlye a small earpiece. The Major took the item and peered at it.

[Stick this in my ear?]

[Yes. When we get back, I'll give you the helmet hardware upgrade routines so we can avoi-wait.] The Magos grabbed Dunlye and held him back so he didn't smack into the Legionnaire, who'd stopped. Dunlye pushed the vox-piece into his ear while looking up at the Legionnaire, who'd turned to a Marine standing at the airlock.

"Hold my gun for me." The Astartes pushed his bolter into the unready arms of the Marine. His back bent slightly as he dropped his own rifle and hefted the weighty weapon in both arms.

"Uh, alright. It'll be here when you get back."

"Yes, it will."

The Legionnaire marched through open airlock door, and Dunlye followed. Things were certainly getting better: he could now understand what these other people were saying.

()()()

**Apollo Café, Presidium Commons, The Citadel**

"What'll you have today?"

Sergeant Haron cocked his head to the side as he thought about what he was about to order. He was on duty in three hours – again – and he couldn't check tourists while he was drunk. He'd most assuredly get fired, and would also most assuredly never hear the end of it from his family on Palaven. On the other hand, he wasn't a human, so…

"A shot of Ryncol."

The bartender nodded and turned around to retrieve the drink. Haron turned around in the meanwhile, observing the patrons in the Apollo Café. There were a few off-duty C-Sec officers he could point out. Six humans were deep in discussion off to his right. Several Asari and Salarians were discussing business proposals past the main café, next to the staircase leading down to the e-stores. He'd always wondered what idle talk like that was like. He had a hard time visualizing it, though – his martially oriented mind didn't usually stray much farther than 'give me the gun already'. Too much social maneuvering for the turian – it never made any sense.

"Sir, your drink."

Haron turned around and accepted the glass from the bartender.

"Everything calm at C-Sec?" asked the bartender.

The Sergeant sipped leisurely at his drink before replying. "Well enough, actually, for Zakera Ward. We get the occasional Batarian who struts through like he owns the place and so can order everyone and everything around, but we just give those types a kick in the ass and they shape up."

The bartender leaned down and reached for a rag to clean the counter with while nodding at Haron. "No Geth infiltrators yet?"

Haron snorted. "I think the Alliance took care of all the synthetics in the Terminus Systems. No robots left if you ask me."

"Heard the rumors?" asked the bartender after a brief silence.

"Who hasn't?" The turian finished off his drink and handed the glass back across the counter, shrugging. "Extranet's been all over it, refugees have formed cults already, and every nerd from here to Earth has taken to online conspiracy forums."

"Yeah." The bartender laughed. "You believe them?"

"The rumors, or the nerds?"

"Rumors."

Haron shrugged again. "The man saved the entire Citadel and the Coucil. He's nearly all the hero General Victus is."

"Can't say I disagree."

The turian slid his glass over to the bartender and nodded his thanks. He turned around and made towards the exit. Another day, another hundred business people to scan and clear … what a great vocati–

"What the hell?"

One of the humans who'd been previously "deep in discussion" abruptly got up and charged the Sergeant. Haron's mandibles opened in confusion as he was cannoned over. He slammed into the ground hard, twisting to try and get leverage on his attacker. The human pinned Haron to the ground with her forearm and took out a blade, which unfolded from compacted sections promptly and glinted in the artificial light of the Citadel.

"Oh…_shit_ – " Haron jammed his knee into his attacker's abdomen hard, jerking her body upwards. The turian used the distraction to snap a hold on her wrist, forcing the blade back. As her tattooed wrist was exposed, he finally knew what this was all about.

_Cerberus_.

His assailant forced more pressure onto his neck with her forearm, choking the Sergeant. His mandibles shuddered open as he tried to get more air into his lungs – he couldn't keep this up much longer. Haron squeezed her wrist as tightly as he could, digging his fingers into her carpals. She gritted her teeth fiercely, snarling wordlessly at Haron as she tried to mash his windpipe down. The turian found his vision tunneling quickly, and forced his knee into her stomach again in a vain attempt to dislodge her. The blade began to inch downwards towards his eyes now as he lost his strength, slowly but surely …

He gasped for breath as his assailant was wrenched off him and thrown against the bar. Hearing returned to the turian in a rush; screams and gunshots were painfully audible from every direction as he staggered to his feet, supporting his neck with his hands, to look at his savior. Haron blinked the blurriness away from his eyes in time to witness the beheading of his assailant. Blood splashed in droves on to the counter, dousing both the drinks that had been abandoned on it and the cowering bartender. Haron's mouth hung open in shock – not at the beheading, but at _how_ his savior had beheaded his attacker.

With his bare hands.

()()()

Stalker moves to the side, having notched the kill into his bladed gauntlet already. His visor HUD reads five more enemies converging towards the alien he has just saved. Ironic, how he must do this on orders – he has killed many xenos before, but never saved one.

The humans rushing towards him have already neutralized various security personnel in the immediate area, with assistance from more operatives converging to his location. His HUD analyzes their style of running – they are coming to kill him, or just get through; there is an urgency in the manner with which they are closing. They do not want to get caught.

Stalker sees everything unfold before him in slow motion, and as the first attacker reaches him, he sidesteps fluidly and runs his hand across the abdomen of the human. Innards splash down onto the floor, decorating the tiles with pieces of small intestine and liver. Stalker sees this and notes this as a kill as well – there can be no feasible recovery from this type of injury.

His HUD blinks red as sensors built into his helmet alert him to enemies behind him as well. _This terrorist attack is well-organized_, Stalker thinks to himself.

He propels himself backwards to his right, sliding on top of the bar counter and smearing the pool of blood already there. Before he has slid past the middle of the table, he has taken out his pistol and shot dead two of the enemies who had been coming up behind him. Their thoraces explode backwards, spraying the running civilians behind them with gristle and bone.

Several of the non-combatants go down because of the shrapnel. Stalker's HUD notes as a small ticker on the left half of the display. Currently, it reads three.

The last attacker continues on his trajectory and has a firearm out. He shoots at Stalker. Stalker feels the bullets impact on his stealth suit as he slides off the end of the counter. The Assassin flips over as he falls, landing on his feet, just in time to see the remaining original attackers leaving the café.

Stalker powers himself forwards in pursuit. He becomes a half-black, half-transparent blur. The attackers – now just _targets_, he corrects himself – are outlined behind the walls as red human forms on Stalker's HUD. He turns right, following the four lifesigns as they hurry away from him.

They make it to the bank kiosk at the far end of the hallway and detour off into the landscaped balcony to the right of the sitting area. Stalker stops in front the kiosk area as he sees their red outlines jump off the balcony and into a waiting escape vehicle. _Damn._

The Assassin reverses direction and runs back down the hallway, nearly trampling a gaggle of blue tentacle-headed aliens. He halts for a moment at the balcony's edge, looking for an avenue for pursuit. His HUD outlines a commuter taxi coming down the airway adjacent to the Presidium Commons. It will pass by the Apollo Café in nearly fifteen seconds, and will be three hundred and twenty two meters directly below him. He knows he must wait until it is a horizontal distance of one hundred meters before he jumps.

"Stop! Who are you?"

Stalker steps up on to the balcony and turns around to face the alien who he saved. It has produced a gun from one of the dead security guards in the hallway next to the café, and is aiming it at Stalker. A ticker in the lower right hand corner of his HUD runs down rapidly – two hundred meters. One hundred and fifty. One hundred and twenty-five.

Without giving a reply, he drops backwards over the balcony.

()()()

"Informative: And…here…is…the…Pre-sid-ium com-mons, to…your…right."

Dunlye sighed. This alien chauffer, _elcor _Womack had called it, talked ever so deliberately, and (as the Major had quickly learned) in the same _exact_ tone. For thirty minutes, he'd had to endure the most boredom he'd ever been subjected to.

The elcor started grunting and sighing into his headset. The Major dared to hope that it was having its species' equivalent to a heart attack. Those hopes were dashed seconds later.

"Remorseful: There…is…a…problem…here…on…the…Citadel. I…am…sorry. This…taxi…is…turning … ," the elcor said.

"We're about to have company," interrupted Pax, looking up through the canopy.

Dunlye looked up as well, soon followed by the elcor. A black blur plummeted through the air towards the cab. The Major moved to unholster his laspistol, but was stopped by Pax, who shook his head slightly.

"Inquisitive: What…company…are…you…talking…about…?" asked the elcor.

The cab jolted downwards, throwing Dunlye against his restraints. The black blur was now on top of the canopy, searching for a way in. Against Newman's instructions, Pax unsheathed his power sword, activated it, and sliced a gash through the canopy. The elcor started to voice a drawled protest as a humanoid figure dropped in to the passenger area of the cab.

"Hydra." A cold, dark voice issued from the being's mask. Dunlye felt his blood run ice-cold as he realized who had just entered the taxi.

"Vindicare," Pax nodded back.

**Author's clarification:** Vindicare melee has never really been documented in any fluff/codex I've read, so I took the liberty of giving Stalker what capabilities I think Vindicares could have.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Magos Denthax peered closely at the wall-mounted help kiosks. They really were wonderful – fully holographic interfaces, complete with what these people called _VI_s. Just a few moments ago, he had quite the time interacting with one. Its name, given to it by its creators, was Avina. Denthax didn't like it. The name sounded like some sort of machine virus to him – scrap code given life, infectious and malevolent.

He added that to his list of things to change, too. Denthax had wirelessly probed their systems, and while advanced, they were not really secure. Not against direct binary attacks, at least – their programs seemed to have been written in an interface language. Bypassing security protocols were a simple matter of rewiring the machine itself, which the Magos believed to be possible both at distance and up close. This venture, however, would have to wait – he was not here to hijack the Citadel, after all. And, speaking of which, Pax _still_ hadn't reported in, nor had his taxi arrived.

Denthax blurted out a snort. Taxi was a loose term for what they'd had to scrounge up for the Astartes. It had been some sort of airborne cargo hauler, cleared of all internal furnishings to make room for the Sergeant.

"Sergeant." Denthax listened for a reply while continuing to observe the kiosks. "You're late."

The Magos left the walls and strode over to the balcony overlooking the rest of the Presidium. The Embassies were stationed at a nice high point, with a good view of the lake in the middle and the other points of interest around it. It was entirely possible that with the amount of transmissions on this station his own was being pushed out.

"Sergeant." Denthax pirouetted on the spot, checking the signal levels on his noosphereic readout. They were all well above the recommended benchmarks. So if it wasn't a signal issue … ?

"Magos."

"Ah! If I may ask, Sergeant, what has kept you?"

The Sergeant seemed to ponder the answer to that question before answering. "Target painted. Disable only – incoming, fifteen seconds."

+What? You're causing trouble already?+ the Magos blurted out in machine code. Two clicks on the vox channel served as his reply. Denthax blurted out a sigh and lowered his hood. People and aliens alike who had previously given the Magos curious but passing looks now gaped at the fusion of machine and man that was his head. Three-fourths of his head was dark grey, with tubes pulsing with lights running into his cranium. Small antennae stuck out of the stark white portion of his skull. One eye was still human, but the other was a dull green orb set in a circular socket. There were little mechanisms moving around all over his face, and this clearly stupefied the onlookers. His face, for the most part, remained intact, except for the large grille covering his mouth. Many of his colleagues took this as a sign of weakness, but the Magos was of the opinion that the Martian Brotherhood should always keep their link with humanity intact.

Denthax's noosphere switched to a reddish-white hue as his combat apparatus unveiled itself. A slender cylindrical cannon unfolded itself from his shoulder and latched itself on to his arm.

+Repositioning.+

His noosphere presented him with a circular reticle, along with a power readout on the weapon. Denthax activated bracing measures, and two struts shot out from the backs of his legs, latching themselves onto the ground. Several C-Sec vehicles screamed past the balcony, sirens wailing. Security officers rushed pashed Denthax as he hurried to an open-ceilinged small alley leading to an elevator. His arms probed the walls for a moment before he launched scaling spikes from his hands to climb over the obstacle. Denthax easily scampered up the wall and placed himself at the top of the structure. The Citadel's presidium presented itself to him in all of its reflective glory. More sirens announced the arrival of additional security vehicles as they undoubtedly responded to the disturbance Pax was part of.

"Target sighted," voxed Denthax. Two vehicles zipped into Denthax's line of sight, weaving between the tall white antennae that were sporadically situated across the Citadel's surface. His reticle tracked the vehicle in front as it jerked up and down, trying to shake their pursuers.

The reticle circled for a moment, then flashed white three times, in quick succession.

"Firing."

A bright blue beam lanced out from his arm-mounted cannon and bisected the rear end of the taxi neatly, violently jolting it sideways. Denthax lost sight of it as it rounded a massive corner and into another Ward, struggling to maintain altitude.

"Good work, Magos," replied Pax.

Denthax's cannon folded itself back into his shoulder. He'd raised his hood back up to cover his head when he stopped and peered closely at Pax's taxi as something fell down from it just before they turned back towards the Presidium Embassies. Could it be …?

No. Surely not.

Denthax leaped down from his perch, straightened his cowl and sleeves, and proceeded to return to the human embassy to wait for Pax's arrival.

Assassins, here? Absurd.

()()()

"… and revenue continues to come through at alarmingly fast rates, only serving to fuel the rising inflation rates already plaguing the micro-markets in Zakera Ward."

"Can the citizens and refugees there expect Citadel authorities to levy the costs of products down, Gale?"

"I'm sorry to report that the Alliance News Network has not, unfortunately, been able to find out anything about actions being taken by any non-human authorities. As always, we will stay on top of any breaking news on this matter."

"Thanks again, Gale."

The hovering camera drone's light flashed off as the live link was cut. Reporter Gale Newman left that dazzling smile on her face for a moment, and then returned to her customary scowling. She turned around and stared down the teenager who'd been making obscene gestures behind her back.

"Beat it, kid." She shook her head disapprovingly as he made one last gesture with his hips before scampered away, no doubt to collect credits from his friends. Teens these days.

Her life, unfortunately, was just that bright. Some stupid pubescent kid screwing around behind her was the _only_ highlight she could think of that would ever be worth mentioning. ANN had her reporting in Zakera Ward (of all places) on _financial instability_ (of all things). There wasn't any room for promotion here. For weeks, Gale had been clamoring to obtain a permit from the Alliance Navy to be a ship-side reporter, but to no avail. She suspected it had something to do with family, unfortunately. They wanted _unbiased_ reporting on their vessels, whatever that meant.

Gale trudged into to the nearest Café – she didn't bother to look at the name – and stood in front of the counter, looking rather crabby.

"Get me some coffee. And a pastry. I don't give a shit what kind."

The Turian clerk nodded and reached down below the counter. "Bad day?"

"Can't do anything about it."

The clerk turned around and started up the coffee maker. "You picked the right café; only one on five levels up or down that serves this stuff."

"Well, shit."

He laughed in that odd, double-stereo output way that all Turians sounded like to Gale. "Things always take a turn for the better, you know. I'm not exactly beating myself up about being a clerk in a café."

"Fair point," she shrugged, taking the coffee and pastry he handed to her.

"Really." He kept talking as she made her payment at the sales kiosk. "Ex-military. Made the mistake of leaving after my tour was over."

Gale finished the payment and sipped at her coffee. "Yeah, but you work on the _Citadel_."

"I could say the same about you."

"True, that," she nodded.

"You'll get the story you want. Just keep waiting it out."

She tilted her head curiously at the alien. "You said you're ex-military?"

"Yeah."

"You seem … rather hospitable towards humans."

He laughed. "Now you know two things: why I left, and why I didn't get a better job outside the Turian Army."

For the first time today, she smiled genuinely.

"Maybe things will get better. Thanks for the coffee and the pep talk."

The clerk nodded. "Anytime …" he trailed off as he looked over her shoulder.

"What - ?"

"Get down!"

He grabbed Gale by the lapels of her dress and hauled her over the counter, plopping her down behind it and shielding her body. Barely after he'd pulled her over, a large explosion rocked the entire café. Glass from the overhead lights shattered and fell downwards, peppering the turian's scaly head. He shook it to clear any stray pieces and helped Gale up.

"You alright?"

She looked around, dazed from the shock of the impact. "I – yeah. I think. What the hell was that?"

The turian looked through the café entrance, eyes searching the open courtyard outside.

"Some sort of taxi crash – plowed right into this part of the tower, and halfway through it by the looks of the skid marks. Blasted it's way right in front of here …"

"You were so wrong about a better day."

The turian was silent for a moment before flashing his equivalent of a smile at her and pointing at her intact drone, which dutifully hovered in a corner of the café. "You've still got that."

Gale looked at the drone for a moment before realizing that he was right. This was her moment to shine.

"Thanks again," she laughed. "I've got a story to catch." Gale beckoned the turian outside, and he followed her out, looking rather nonplussed.

()()()

"This is Gale Newman, reporting live from the scene of the crash in Zakera Ward."

She waited for confirmation, framed against a wall on fire. It took a moment for her camera drone's link to break through the static interference the crash had caused, but the live news desk interrupted regular programming to her personal link quickly.

"Several minutes ago, a taxi crashed into tower here in Zakera Ward, leveling several shops on the way and causing several injuries. I can hear first responders on the way over the din of this crash – there are several injuries that I can see clearly." The drone panned away from her visage and gave the viewers a panoramic view of the destruction: several humans were slowly getting up, some bloodied badly, others with broken bones. Several still bodies were lying strewn across the tiled floors, casting leering shadows all over the level. "As a matter of fact – " personal stories were often the best style for reporting like this – "I was quite nearly in path of destruction you can see carved out here." The drone panned again to show the viewers a blackened trench, then came to rest on the turian clerk. "Sir, can you tell us what happened?"

"Ah, well, I was just going about the rounds when this happened." Inwardly, Gale gave a sigh of relief. Thankfully, the clerk was saying exactly what she'd told him to say.

"Do you have any idea why this happened?"

"They were probably hammered when they got into the car – that's nearly always the reason."

Gale nodded solemnly. "Was there any damage done to your café?"

"Just a few broken lights, nothing you can't fix in short order. "

"Thank you, sir." The drone panned back to Gale. "We'll stay on top of the breaking news as it comes in." She kept a heroic smile on her face until the lights on the drone turned off and turned to the clerk. "Good job. Framing the story in context of a problem the Citadel has was a good addition."

"Yeah – thinking on the spot here." He started off towards the crashed taxi. "Better see if anyone's getting out of there alive."

Gale followed him as they stepped carefully around parts of the flaming wreck. The taxi was largely crumpled. The clerk reached the canopy and hefted it up, expecting a jam. He was surprised when it came up without effort. He peered inside and continued to look at the interior for what seemed to Gale to be a moment too long.

"There's…no one in here."

He turned around to look at Gale uncertainly as she gaped at him. "What do you mean?"

"It's empty. Canopy was open – someone bailed out after it crashed." The turian looked around, suddenly on guard. "Something's not right …" He trailed off as he started to circle the crashed taxi, looking for evidence of escape.

"Footprints, here – rather bloody, too." Gale watched him retrace them and hesitantly followed behind him.

"You know, I don't really like dark alleys …"

The turian kept going, following the prints as they led into a large, dark recess. A dimly-lit hallway was visible further down into the darkness, and the footprints ceased to be visible there. The clerk shrugged as he realized he couldn't follow them any further.

"Well, that's the end of the line–"

Gale screamed as a white blade emerged from the darkness, cutting through the clerk's sternum cleanly. A gout of blood sprayed out from his body as it convulsed. Some of it landed on Gale as she stumbled backwards, shocked. The assailant emerged from the darkness, and then another, and then yet another, and …

"Who – who are you?"

Five armed humans stepped out and looked around. The one who had killed the clerk wiped her blade on the turian's clothing. All of them looked at Gale with murderous intent.

"I-I don't want to die …"

"No one does."

Gale whipped around and started to run, the drone popping along after her.

"Help!"


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's note: **originally, 'may she rest in peace' was typed in as 'may she rest in piece', unintentionally. Chucklebutts.

**Chapter**** 17**

Admiral Steven Hackett stood outside the conference room, his weathered face appearing even more weary that usual. He knew that the meeting that was about to take place would shape the course of the Alliance forever. He also knew the ramifications of every action and promise he could make in the coming minutes. It was an occasion that Hackett was at once prepared and ill prepared for.

If there was one thing he could look forward to, however, it was _not_ having that slime-ball Udina sniveling and working his serpentine ways in the same room as he would be in. Thankfully, the Councillor had several other duties to attend to. Hackett suspected that Shepard's reappearance ranked a tad higher on Udina's to-do list. After all, even the Councillor hadn't been told everything about this meeting. Need to know basis and all that. Sometimes, Admiral Hackett loved the Navy's protocols.

"Are we ready, sir?"

The admiral turned to the side slightly as Captain David Anderson came to stand beside him. Hackett liked the Captain - he had ambition, a healthy disregard for chain of command when it mattered most, and best of all he had the respect of his men. That last attribute was something that was sorely lacking in many officers in the Alliance. A lot of the men and women who'd served in the First Contact War weren't in the military anymore, and the soldiers fresh from the various Alliance Officer schools still had a lot to learn about the military. Hackett just hoped that they'd learn sooner rather than later.

"I believe we are, Anderson."

Admiral Hackett punched a code into the door release pad, and it retreated upwards into its frame. Both Alliance officers stepped inside with an appearance of confidence, but not necessarily feeling it. Sitting at the opposite end of the long, dull blue table were three figures. One was a massive armored being, easily larger than any Krogan warlord Hackett had ever seen. The second was not (as Hackett had been informed many times by various aides) a robot, but he still wasn't sure what exactly it was if it wasn't a mechanical being. It had a hooded red robe adorned with a black cog on the chest covering its body. The last was a man of slight build, youthful pale features, and cropped brown hair. He was dressed in mottled green fatigues, fairly plain and without any significant markings. There was a look in the young man's eyes, however, that kept Hackett from mentally dismissing the soldier (the name was Major Dunlye, Hackett remembered from the briefing reports he'd studied several hours earlier): a look that he'd seen in the eyes of one too many soldiers who'd fought in the most brutal fights imaginable.

"My name is Admiral Steven Hackett, Systems Alliance Navy." Hackett gestured to his right. "Captain Anderson, as advisor to our Councillor to the Citadel authorities, was asked to join me."

The armored giant nodded while his two companions remained still and silent. He took off his helmet rather deliberately, allowing both Alliance officers to see in detail the intricacies of it. Dull red wings swept backwards underneath the eye-pieces, but that was the only deviation from the greater color of the armor; black, with a barely visible sheen over it. The admiral suspected it to be some sort of stealth covering - the SSV Normandy, may she rest in peace, had also displayed a certain 'shininess' to it's hull.

Underneath the helmet was a fairly human visage - dark hair and white skin and black eyes stared back at Hackett. He didn't look a day past twenty, but the admiral knew of no twenty-year-olds who were that big.

"Sergeant Pax, Legionnes Astartes. Magos Denthax of the Martian Brotherhood to my right, and Major Dunlye of the Fifth Honor Guard division, Global Sixth Espandorian Army to my left."

Hackett nodded and took a seat at the table, Anderson following suit. The blue and white lights played hell with Hackett's eyes - Pax's armor seemed to change color from dark black to dark blue intermittently in the brightly lit room. It was too bad that there wasn't anything that he could look away at and blink away the hallucinations - the room was pitifully devoid of any furnishings except for the table and padded chairs. Only the Systems Alliance logo glowed a dull white on the ceiling, and that was playing hell with Hackett's eyes, too.

"We're sorry for the delay. Apparently there was some sort of malicious attack by certain individuals happening here on the Presidium at the same time you were being transported to this meeting. From what I can gather, the surveillance cameras were knocked out, but Citadel Security has some of its best people on the case," informed Hackett.

"It is of no consequence. We are here, after all," rumbled Pax.

"Down to business, then. I'm sure you could sympathize with our, ah, shock at learning who'd saved New Istanbul," started the admiral.

Pax nodded understandingly. "As we understand it, the Warp is not the primary FTL travel method in this universe. Travelling through time, then, is something that should be viewed as technically impossible for you."

Both Alliance Officers nodded. "We do want to extend our thanks for saving our colony - the reinforcements we sent would never have gotten there in time to make a difference otherwise," said Hackett.

"We did what we could."

There was a moment of silence before Hackett furthered the conversation.

"I'm going to be frank: you've got Alliance brass and the entire Council in an uproar. Before your arrival, humanity didn't have a healthy ratio of dreadnought-class starships at our disposal. But now, as we understand it, the smallest ships in your expeditionary fleet is one and a half kilometers long?"

Pax looked at the not-a-robot, Denthax.

"Essentially correct. We have twelve escort-class cruisers, the smallest of which measured at drydock to be one point three-six kilometers long," said Denthax. The not-robot's voice was extremely clear, but had an underlying dispassionate tone to it ... like a robot.

"This is really shifting the current balance of power in our galaxy, you know. It's only been a few days since you arrived, but already we've got the highest ranking alien diplomats calling for a full investigation of you and your technologies." Hackett left that statement in the air purposefully, allowing Anderson to chip in.

"The human ambassador to the Citadel Council, Councillor Donnel Udina, was in a pretty safe spot until news of your arrival came through. As crazy as it may sound, the rest of the Council is pushing for complete military disassociation with the 25th as far as the Alliance is concerned."

Pax narrowed his eyes. "So why am I not talking to them and making them see ... _reason_?"

Hackett and Anderson looked at each other uncomfortably before the latter replied. "As if that were even possible. Anyway, this isn't an official meeting. Hell, Alliance brass doesn't even know this is happening. But both the Admiral and I have ... information that some real hard times are about to come down on the galaxy. We need all the help we can get."

"You mean those harvester machines? The Reapers, I believe they're called?" asked Magos Denthax.

Anderson couldn't hide his surprise at their knowledge of that as well as Hackett could, and his features slacked slightly in surprise. "You know about the -"

"Not much, no. Other than some unreliable conspiracies, we really don't know much at all," replied Denthax.

"Unfortunately, those conspiracy nuts have it right," Hackett confirmed gravely. He knew how far the Alliance and the Council had gone after Shepard's 'death' to cover everything up, and how far they were still willing to go. They'd beat the Geth drum relentlessly, but there were always bound to be some people who'd figure things out in the end. And when the Reapers got here, from all indications of the previous extinctions, there wouldn't even be enough time for the 'conspiracy nuts' to say _we told you so_ before everyone was rendered down into husks ... or worse. Admiral Hackett wasn't a man who was easily spooked, but the impending invasion was something that certainly got on his nerves. "These Reapers _are_ inbound, sooner or later."

"But that is not your most pressing concern right now," stated Sergeant Pax.

"No, it's not." Hackett put his hands on the table and clasped them together thoughtfully.

"You received the reports we forwarded with Captain Womack?"

Both Hackett and Anderson nodded. Anderson spoke up: "We've known about the Collectors for years now, but they've never abducted this many people in such a short timespan. We don't know where they go after they perform their kidnappings. We have no idea where to even begin to draw defensive lines, if this even is a war. Hell, until we got your reports, we were sure it was just a series of terrorist attacks."

Pax nodded slowly. "We are prepared to render whatever assistance you may need in the defense of the colonies."

Inwardly, Hackett groaned. This was it - the moment where they found out what Pax's real motives for coming here were. While the outer colonies were useful in their own right, and weren't anything to forget about, the abductions wasn't a huge concern to the Alliance. Nothing had happened any closer to Earth, and even if they did, the Collectors would have to go through First Fleet as well as whatever fleet happened to be on rotation in the Sol System. "And in return, you want..."

The Sergeant smiled, baring his perfect teeth. "Leeway to mine from any asteroid belts whatever materials we require. If and when the time comes, we will also want rights to draft soldiers from the population of three, perhaps four, densely populated planets. Additionally, we want the ability to work unencumbered when it comes to Human-Citadel relations. We will do our due diplomatic diligence for them, but nothing more and nothing less. Access to planet-side manufacturing centers is something we need as well." He paused for a moment. "Finally, we also want to station troops on the homeworld, Earth."

The admiral was surprised. Mining rights, some drafting abilities, and more provided military aid? Today might just turn out to be a very good day for the Alliance. He was even more surprised when Denthax spoke up with another offer.

"The Twenty-Fifth Expeditionary Fleet is also open to limited technology exchanges."

"You just want mining rights and reinforcements? What's the catch?" asked Anderson.

"Our technologies are far more advanced than yours, Captain. However far ahead of the times they may be, they are not limitless. We need to be able to sustain any foreseeable war effort, both on the ground and in space. And Earth ... is quite nearly holy ground for many members of our fleet. In our time, it is the planet from where the savior of Mankind himself rose up and helped Humanity regain the Galaxy. Before we came here, his forces were on the precipice of total conquest - complete and utter annihilation of our enemies. He led us that far, and Earth is his homeworld as well as the birthplace of many of my own brethren."

Hackett pursed his lips. He could see where they were coming from, certainly. This 'savior' sounded like one of those charismatic figures of myth from Classical Antiquity. "We'll see what we can do. I don't think any of those requests will be a problem."

"Good. Now, about this Council."

Anderson sat back in his chair, clearly still suspicious, but not willing to broach the subject any further.

"Like Captain Anderson said, Sergeant. This meeting isn't official. It never happened. You're pretty distant from the Council for now - we've got the political smokescreens in place to keep their doubts and reservations in check. We're trying to push this entire situation as an internal matter, but that Spectre that reported you to the Council didn't leave much room for error in what she found. Having at least thirty capital vessels - by our standards - skews the balance of galactic power in your favor. I'll keep you updated on whatever measures they want to push on you, though. I can guarantee that there won't be any curveballs thrown at you."

"Thank you for keeping them at a politically feasible distance," said Pax, slightly tilting his head forward in gratitude.

"Just out of curiosity ... how many ships do you have in your fleet?" asked Captain Anderson.

"Your Spectre was close in her estimation. Forty-two. Might I ask the same of you?"

"Last counts had numbers around six hundred," replied Hackett. "If there's anything else ...?"

"There is not, Admiral. The Twenty-Fifth appreciates your time. Upon receipt of locations the Alliance wants defended, we will re-position ourselves appropriately."

"We're debriefing with the top brass in half an hour. I think we'll have the answers to your requests by then." Both Hackett and Anderson got up from their chairs. straightening their blue dress uniforms. "There's a cab waiting outside to take you back to the _Waterloo_." Both of the Alliance Officers waited until the three at the opposite end of the table had gotten up and made their way across the room. Pax held his helmet in one hand as he held out the other to Hackett.

"I hope we meet again, Admiral."

Hackett took it, and couldn't help but feel a little mulish - the gauntlet with which he shook hands with was easily twice the size of his head. "Likewise, Sergeant."

The door slid open again as Anderson punched in a combination. The representatives from the Twenty-Fifth filtered out, but Hackett and Anderson remained in the room for a few moments longer.

"Six hundred? That's a hell of a bluff, sir. I didn't know we owned the Citadel Fleet, too," remarked the Captain.

"I have a feeling that I wasn't the only one screwing around with numbers," answered Hackett.

()()()

**Zakera** **Ward**

Gale Newman panted heavily as she rounded a blackened corner and stumbled over some scattered debris. The entire ward was doused in a red light, broken only by the orange of various fires raging from the crash. She could hear the five murderers behind her, racing to catch up to her. If she hadn't been so busy running for her life, she probably would've thought that the fact that her drone still tagged along with her was hilarious.

"Help!" she cried out. "Someone hel-" Gale squeaked lamely as she tripped over a heavy object. She landed on the floor hard, skidding forward several yards on what she quickly realized (to her horror) was blood from the body that had gotten in her way. She fought to get back up several times, but the floor proved to be too slippery for any measure of success. Gale rolled over on her back as she saw her assailants come around the corner as well. The way the red light played over them made it seem like they were bathing in blood.

"No, please! I - I won't say a word about this to anyone - "

One of her pursuers stepped forward quickly, raising the blade and stabbing down. Gale pushed off against the floor slid to her left, avoiding the blade as it crashed downwards onto the floor. She kicked out as best she could at the blade while sliding past the sword, managing to flip it out of the wielder's grasp. Now, the rest came at her as she came to the end of her slide. Gale managed to roll away from the first slash and dodge the second, but the third hit home and lacerated her thigh cleanly. The blade stuck into the ground beneath her, holding her in place very painfully.

"You're dead now, reporter!"

Exhaustion from the adrenaline rush from running for her life and loss of blood from a dozen minor and major wounds kept her from screaming out loudly. She groaned feebly instead, hoping that someone - _anyone - _would hear.

Then her attacker exploded. Her head jerked back involuntarily as blood and gristle hit her face. The four remaining pursuers turned around quickly, as if having expected this.

A transparent blur dropped down from one of the wrecked ceiling beams. Two of her assailants swung their blades expertly, but sliced through nothing but thin air. The blur reappeared behind them as they pivoted around. Gale could see a barely visible fist slam into and through their chests, whipping their heads forward as all their limbs became limp. The bodies were lifted as the blur spun around, using the flesh and bones of her dead attackers as a shield to block off another swing of a blade, which stuck fast into the bodies.

Gale wasn't sure what happened next as she blinked blood out of her eyes, but a head thumped down next to her a second later. She looked back up to see the last pursuer held up against a wall. He gurgled something in response to a question the blur asked. As soon as the blur received an answer, it proceeded to cleanly execute the man. Gale managed to crack her mouth open to talk.

"My ... leg ... I ... can't ... feel ... it ..." she gasped. Gale's head swam and her vision blurred as her savior came to stand over her and regard her body almost curiously. She started to feel herself lose consciousness quickly, and let her head fall back down onto the floor.

"There's a sword halfway in it," a cold voice came back. "And you've lost too much blood."

Light bent and refracted as the being de-cloaked. It bent down and ran a hand over her lower torso. It came away slick with blood. More was coming out every second.

Gale closed her eyes and just let the darkness take her.

()()()

She's fairly fit, as he'd gathered on his initial appraisal. Her face is largely blotched with blood, but it's smeared in such a way that it appears to be tribal war paint. Stalker assumes that her dirty blonde hair was well-made before, because now it is tangled with pieces of glass and bone. Her vivid green eyes were darting back and forth just a moment ago - now they are closed. She's unconscious now.

The Assassin pulls the sword out of the woman's leg. A spurt of blood splashes against his suit but all of it slides off cleanly. He opens a vox channel to the vessel he came here in.

"One live casualty. Advise?"

Crackle. Then an answer comes.

"How bad?" questions a harsh, bass voice.

"Authorities are on the way. I doubt she will make it."

Crackle.

"Bring her on board."

This surprises Stalker. "Affirmative." He lifts her up with ease and places her on his shoulders, taking care to keep her leg elevated to stem the blood flow. The Assassin cloaks again, sticking to the shadows as he has always done and moving absurdly fast.

Yes. Quite surprising.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's note:** wondering if anyone knows what Asari fighters or frigates look like? Cruisers and dreadnoughts are on the ME Wiki, but I don't know about the first two...don't remember seeing them on Thessia in ME3 either. Also, horizontal rule ftw

**Chapter 18**

The Serpent Nebula was dotted with ships of all sizes. They moved ponderously, sailing through the gaseous mass majestically. All the ships were clearly partitioned according to their affiliation. Other ships entered and left Citadel space as blue flashes on the dozens of Mass Relays dotting the area. Closer to the Citadel, space garbage littered the nebula, globbing together in masses of multicolored junk. Despite the best efforts of the Citadel authorities, these blobs were always present. Too many spacers were careless with what waste they produced on their ships. They just ejected whatever they saw as unnecessary.

Without these ugly smears on the otherwise beautiful white nebula backdrop, Legion Specialist Turman doubted that his Storm Eagle gunship would've remained undetected. Despite the heat covers on the engines and the stealth coating on the hull of the craft, someone with the right equipment could've conceivably detected his ship.

Aboard the _Waterloo_, Pax had planted a Warp beacon. It was a rather inconspicuous item, in the form of several odd-looking sigils on his Bolter. A trick he'd learned from his time with the Legion's main body, Pax had once told Turman. The Specialist had been able to skim the warp in short jumps with the help of a Navigator on loan from the Twenty-Fifth; the cultist Brother Ah-Din had confronted on orders on the _Demon of Ullanor,_ Lady DeFrant. Oddly enough, Ajall had been more than willing to part with her once pressed hard enough.

He could tell his presence made her uneasy – he smelled the fear off her body - through her sweat and pheromones. It was a reverent fear. A fear not unlike that of the people of Khur, so he'd heard.

He shifted his position ever so slightly, checking the mission clock to his right. The cockpit of the Storm Eagle was lightened only by various blinking lights on the control console and the nebula's ambient lighting. As soon as the light hit his black-blue armor, though, it disappeared entirely. He was a pit of darkness, and that probably scared the Navigator fast asleep to his left in the co-pilot's chair.

"Nearly at the rendezvous point. Requesting pickup."

Turman tapped at his earbud receiver with a gauntleted finger and spoke into his throat-mounted vox. "Affirmative. ETA is ninety seconds." He reached out to a lever in front of him and pushed it backwards. The Storm Eagle's engines rumbled to life, and the cockpit's view spun past several mass relays before coming to rest on the Citadel. DeFrant awoke with a start, her head jerking up from her chest. Her sharp blue eyes darted left and right as she sought to discern the reason of the interruption in her sleep.

"Strap in," said Turman.

"Where are we going?" came a mumbled question.

"That station there." Turman pointed at the huge multi-limbed structure that filled most of the viewscreen. The ship powered through the void towards an arm of the station, an ever increasing _thrumming_ sound reverberating through the hull as the engines increased their kinetic output.

"Has he reported in?" she asked.

Turman nodded, but voiced no reply. His gauntleted hand flashed all over the control board, maintaining the craft's near-perfect trajectory.

"How big is it, do you think?"

The Specialist didn't even glance at the readout screen in front of him. "Each arm is forty-four kilometers long, give or take. The circular edifice in the middle is twelve kilometers in diameter. Comparable to the Yndonesian Bloc's orbital factories in Terran space."

The Navigator fell silent as she contemplated her homeworld's huge ship-building manufactories. In addition to the massive hives that stretched into Terran low orbit, space stations of staggering size always hung suspended above the planet, working day and night to churn out materiel for the Imperial war effort. Turman had been to Terra on a few occasions in his eighty-three years of service to the Legion, and the scale of the mechanization of the planet had never ceased to amaze him.

The gunship bucked slightly as it entered the Citadel's outer atmospheric limits. The large blocky buildings, which had previously been blurred by the breathable gases, now came into complete clarity. It was hard to make out the details of each building as the gunship descended past them, but the Specialist could still extrapolate building weaknesses. Too many windows, open balconies for street-level crossfire positions, alleys between buildings to lay ambushes in, bridges between towers to collapse … this place was extremely insecure. Turman doubted this place would last even half a day under siege from any Legion.

He glanced down at the auspex. While previously it'd had no recognizable signatures, one bright blue dot appeared now. The Assassin. Then he looked back up and cursed under his breath. There was a line of traffic directly in front of them, separating the balcony where Stalker stood and the rapidly approaching Storm Eagle. Turman felt DeFrant tense in the chair next to him.

Turman put the nose of the craft down into a dive, expertly manipulating the thrusters. The Storm Eagle violently banked sideways, avoiding a large truck-taxi and shooting the gap between two smaller cabs. He avoided several vehicles in similar fashion, banking and twisting the craft to avoid hitting the smaller civilian vehicles. Turman tapped at a few buttons and he was flung against the seat's harnesses as the deceleration engines fired up. The craft swiveled around in position, backing up towards the balcony Stalker stood on with his injured charge. Small trees and bushes surrounded the open vista, framed by open flames visible through a broken doorway behind the Assassin.

"Opening ramp," voxed Turman. There was a clunk and whirring as the back of the craft opened to admit Stalker.

"Close it up," notified the Assassin as soon as he was on board.

The Storm Eagle rose upwards, having gained its cargo. Incoming radio signals were rerouted to Turman's vox bead – urgent request for identification from Citadel authorities. He ignored all of them and pushed the throttle forward. The Storm Eagle shot upwards through the traffic lines and reentered the void outside the Citadel's atmospheric influence. The sights of the Citadel, and the radio signals, receded downwards rapidly. Turman tapped in a code to activate the autopilot, then got up off the chair and headed into the rear hold. The Navigator looked back at him as he left, wondering why he was leaving her alone in the cockpit.

"Calculate a course back to the last jump point, Navigator." Turman said as he walked out of the cockpit.

The short, darkened hallway to the rear hold was relatively unadorned – a great variety of weapons were racked on both walls, and spare stealth suits that Stalker could require were hung above the guns and explosives. A dull series of blue lights marked the ceiling's extent, stopping at a portal leading to the rear of the ship.

A bloody scene greeted him as soon as he entered the open area that served as the Storm Eagle's hold. The casualty Stalker had reported in with lay on the floor across from the miniature Geller Field generator, unconscious and bleeding freely. Turman grabbed a field issue medical kit from just outside the door frame.

"Injuries?" he asked as stepped over to the female on the floor and kneeled down next to her.

"Major trauma to lower torso. Blood flow is inconsistent. Erratic pulse. I dosed her with a stimulant to keep her heart functional," replied Stalker.

The Specialist stuck a large pair of tweezers into the primary wound, above her right leg, and pinched the bleeding artery shut. To stem any further bleeding, Turman shoved a wad of anti-coagulant clay into the wound. It stretched and abraded the already wounded flesh, but it was necessary – besides, synthflesh was easily grown using elementary laboratory materials already present on this vessel. Having done that, Turman moved on to the various other wounds the woman had accrued, slicing away parts of her clothing with a wrist-mounted blade.

Thirty seconds later, she was as patched up as well Turman could manage. He propped her up on to a wall-mounted harness. She looked almost comical to the Space Marine – gray globs of clay stuck to her body in various locations, blood smeared on her clothes and skin, and sitting in an Astartes-sized seat. The Legionnaire left her and started towards the cockpit, motioning for Stalker to join him.

"Did you discern a location?"

The Assassin thought for a moment before nodding. "Yes. We need to find out where it is in reference to Warp travel, though."

"Denthax can handle that." Sending a brief message to the Magos would not be difficult - they were still in Citadel space. "Where?"

"Horizon."

A moment later, both of them stopped in their tracks as a shout came from the cockpit.

"Get up here! We're about to get blown to bits!"

* * *

><p>The flight traffic control room was in chaos. Head Controller Daleia Lewrra felt other controllers behind her rushing back and forth, contacting the nearest naval units and other Citadel authorities for both affirmation and advice.<p>

None of them had seen anything like it.

Three minutes ago, an unmarked spacecraft had appeared on Citadel sensors out of nowhere. Despite radioed orders to cease its trajectory and head to the nearest landing station, it had blown right through several Wards before stopping for several seconds at a location in Zakera. Before any C-Sec craft could move to intercept it at that spot, it had blasted back upwards past the Citadel's atmosphere.

"Unidentified craft, you have exactly fifteen seconds to slow your ascent and make yourselves available to boarding parties. I repeat, you have fifteen seconds to slow your ascent," communicated Daleia. A human controller halted behind her and tapped Daleia's shoulder.

"Ma'am, the Asari cruiser_ Nefrane_ is on standby. They've launched interceptors. ETA thirty seconds," she whispered. Daleia nodded her tentacled head and spoke into her headset again.

"Unidentified craft, if you do not slow your descent, you will be shot down." No response.

Daleia switched her view with a flick of her wrist, and the holographic screen in front of her reasserted itself into an image transmitting from the hull of the Nefrane. The interceptors were clearly visible as slender, curvaceous craft flashing towards the mystery ship. It was roughly twice as big as any one of the interceptors, but of a clearly alien design. Head Controller Lewrra couldn't think of a single ship she knew of that looked like it. The craft's body was rectangular, with two dorsally oriented wings. Mounted underneath each wing were sets of what appeared to be missile tubes. Two stabilizing fins (or things that looked like stabilizing fins) were attached perpendicular to the plane of the wings. The image of the craft was still not resolute enough, such was its distance, but it also appeared to Daleia that even more weapons were mounted on the prow of the craft.

The counter on the central screen of the control room ran closer and closer to zero. All activity slowed perceptibly as everyone's eyes were drawn to the viewscreens showing the still-accelerating craft. Six ... five ... four ... three ... two ... one.

Zero.

In front of the craft, a large red gash tore across the fabric of the nebula, starkly visible against the luminous white-red of the Nebula. A spindly tendril of violet lightning sprang out from the tear, enveloped the craft, and pulled it into the red gash. Daleia blinked, and the red tear wasn't there anymore. It had disappeared, along with the ship. The Asari interceptors slowed and arced back towards the _Nefrane_, having lost their target.

"Was ... was that an FTL jump?" asked a controller to no one in particular. Daleia could only shake her head.

Everyone had seen FTL jumps, but they'd never seen a light-show like _that_ accompanying a jump before.

* * *

><p><strong>Cronos Station, Anadius system, Horsehead Nebula<strong>

"Their signal was lost? Clarify the term _lost_. You were monitoring them the entire mission."

The operative shrugged angrily, lost for words.

"The strike team diverted from the pre-planned escape route. A minute and a half later, their signals went dark. Security cameras were all been knocked out in the area shortly after their cab crashed."

The Illusive Man blew out a long stream of smoke from his mouth, holding the cigarette out towards the hologram. He did not like negative results. He'd actually pondered why he didn't like failure several times to date, and he'd concluded that it was because he'd never been faced with it. Failure was as foreign to him as were aliens. He didn't particularly _like_ aliens, either.

"Then _find out_ what happened. I won't have lost one of my teams to a technology hiccup." He took a long drag on the cigarette, savoring every bit of it. "And do you have any news on the Alliance Fleet movements yet, particularly in the Terminus Systems?"

The operative shook his helmeted head. "Not yet. Alliance brass was tied up in meetings all day long on a feed with Hackett routed via Arcturus Station. We're still trying to figure out what that was all about."

Nodding his head, the Illusive Man cut off the feed, the silent reprimand to the operative evident in the way he closed off the quantum entanglement communication device - grinding his cigarette mercilessly into its ash tray and narrowing his inhumanely sharp blue eyes at the hologram it disappeared.

Failure was not an option ... it never was.


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's note: **time jump. Always seemed a bit weird to me that Kaidan was there alone, even if he was 'undercover'

**Chapter 19**

**Horizon**

Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko looked up at the mechanic, rubbing his weary eyes as the man in front of him droned on and on about power requirements. As if the bland white walls of the habitat shelter that served as his temporary office wasn't boring enough, this colonist was now trying (in vain) to deter Kaidan from approving the plans for the installation of two more GARDIAN defense batteries by spewing some random tech-speak bullshit.

"The generators that you brought along are _not_ going to be enough! If the Alliance wants them here, then they'll have to get their power from their own generators, because we aren't going to be giving it to you!" The mechanic gulped in a lungful of air, revving up for another round of verbal harassment. "We have things hard enough on ourselves out here, without the Alliance to screw it all up with these...these _defense turrets_."

"Look. My superiors are well aware of the impact this project will make on the colonists. I understand your concerns, and I'll make sure to relay them through the right channels. In the meanwhile; have you completed all the necessary generator buffers and re-routes?"

The mechanic gashed his teeth furiously. Apparently he didn't like getting snubbed.

"Yes, yes I have. If the colony blows up because of a power overload, though, it'll be on _your_ head, Commander." The mechanic huffed and started back towards the entrance.

"The colony isn't going to _blow up_, get a grip on yourself," Kaidan said while making a face at the mechanic. Seriously? Blow up the colony? That was as crazy as crazy could get. He continued to shake his head as the man left his office.

A memory of riding in a Mako, trying to get through hostile Geth territory and reach an experimental Prothean mass relay, sprung unbidden from Kaidan's memories. He smiled to himself at the recollection as he lifted a stylus off his desk and prepared to approve the orders for the GARDIAN turrets. Now _that_ was as crazy as crazy used to get. Fate of the galaxy on the line, rogue Spectre on the loose, and death staring you right in the eyes.

Kaidan started to fill in the work order. The defense turrets that were already in place had yet to be tested, calibrated, or even powered up, but Kaidan wasn't worried about that. He _was_, however, slightly apprehensive about some of these rebellious colonists. Most of them had come to Horizon seeking refuge from the Alliance, away from all the rules. They could conceivably cause trouble - trouble that Kaidan could ill afford.

His duty came first, though. And the Terminus Systems attacks that the Alliance suspected Cerberus for were no small matter. Even if the colonists weren't aware, or just simply didn't like the Alliance, Kaidan was present for their safety.

Alenko looked down at a beeping red light on his comm. He depressed the 'receive' button and a tinny voice issued from the speakers.

"Sir, we're got something you might want to see."

"Affirmative. I'm on my way. Thank you, lieutenant."

* * *

><p>Kaidan walked through the drab white habitat-block towers, nodding greetings left and right to what colonists were outside. Horizon's sun rose in the east and set in the west, which was rather disorienting for someone who had spent a large portion of his life on Earth. The first thing he'd done was to get himself acclimated well, making sure he knew how to make his way around Horizon without any technology. There was just one main landmass, surrounded by an ocean. Islands dotted the vast ocean in a series of isolated archipelagos. The Alliance had backlogged science requests for research stations on those islands, in order to better understand how Earth itself possibly went from a water-world to having land billions of years ago. Kaidan found that thought intriguing - that Horizon could provide a point from where to jump into Earth's own history was a very interesting proposition.<p>

The Colony Proper itself was located seven klicks inland from the shore, in a cleared expanse surrounded by an alien forest. There were natural predators here, predators that the colony had to watch out for, but they usually didn't bother the humans. Alenko had only had to kill one such beast so far - a slithering and slimy multi-jawed crocodile creature.

The Staff Commander turned and followed an alley down into a side-street and continued to the barracks, now just up ahead in a beige building marked clearly with the Alliance's famous 'A'-like logo . The ankle-high brown grass was well-trodden here, having seen many tracked vehicles come and go along its length in the past fourteen years since the colony had been established. The grass always looked very dead to Kaidan, in comparison to the grass outside the Colony Proper. The botanists assured him that it was quite alive - thriving, in fact, due to the introduction of Earth soil all those years ago.

"Commander! Do you have a moment?"

Kaidan stopped and turned around quickly. It was Lilith, one of the few tech specialists that had shown some warmth towards the Alliance troops now stationed at Horizon. He'd liked her from the get-go; she'd always gotten her tasks done, and made herself available when needed.

"Sure," Kaidan replied. He started back towards the barracks as Lillith fell in to step with him. "Need something?"

"The comm systems are still down, can we expect some replacement parts anytime soon?"

Alenko sifted through his memory quickly for all the dispatches the nearest Alliance outpost had sent to him. "In about two days. I approved the work order yesterday. They'll come in with the next supply shipment."

"Thanks, Commander," nodded Lilith. "Headed somewhere?"

"Just to the barracks. Might need to check something out, past the outskirts, actually," answered Kaidan.

"Another croc?"

"I hope not." They reached the foot of the stairs leading into the barracks, and Kaidan nodded in dismissal. Lilith waved and reversed direction, going back down the street to undoubtedly attend to other mechanical duties. Alenko waved his hand at the door, his omni-tool activating and sliding it open.

"Sir!" Lieutenant Marie Durand stood waiting for him at the doorway. The dark-haired marine was clad in the standard military attire, complete with a beret marked with the Alliance's logo on it. She had an open set of features - wide brown eyes, short dark hair, thin lips, and a rather blunt nose. She could've been from any tropical region on Earth, Kaidan had surmised when he'd gotten to Horizon - her dossier, however, placed her as a spacer, born and raised.

"You wanted me to see something you couldn't radio over?"

Kaidan strode in and the door closed shut behind him. Secure in the confines The lieutenant activated her omni-tool and a radar display popped up. As the display pulsed, a dot revealed itself on-screen. It moved closer and closer to the central point, indicative of the Colony's location.

"This is airborne radar?" asked Kaidan as his eyes tracked the blip.

"Yes, sir. It showed up about six minutes ago. From the ping returns, I'd say it was a shuttle. A big shuttle."

The Staff Commander knew what he was looking at. What he'd been sent here to discern was finally revealed. _Cerberus_. Durand must have seen the frown on his face, because she opened her mouth to ask him a question. "Something wrong, Commander?"

Durand locked eyes with Kaidan. The Staff Commander knew that the lieutenant had known since her assignment to Horizon that something was amiss. She was extremely smart - that Kaidan knew. He still remembered the mission to Nepmos two years ago, where he'd ended up fighting off the seemingly unending waves of Rachni bug-soldiers. Her commanding officer had gone down, and she'd been forced to take action. Durand had miraculously held out for nearly a day until Commander Shepard and the SSV Normandy had made it to Nepmos and reinforced her position to give the Alliance time to send a shuttle and pick up Durand's remaining men. Privately, Kaidan had been glad when she and a detachment 10th Frontier Division had been assigned to the Horizon Defense Project as "technical specialists". He needed a military presence he could trust to a relatively high degree, and Durand was it.

"Maybe, Lieutenant," replied Kaidan. "I'm going to go check it out. You're in command while I'm gone - keep the marines ready. Have them suit up and start patrolling the streets. If I don't make contact within -" Kaidan checked his omnitool's chronometer "- two hours, have them start setting up barricades on the main streets. Tell the Colonists to _stay indoors_."

Durand nodded quickly and saluted. "Yes, sir. Stay safe out there, sir."

"I'll try."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

Gale Newman opened her eyes and saw nothing.

_Well, not _nothing _nothing_, she reasoned to herself. She could make out vague black shapes against an even blacker background. Her body ... she'd been stabbed multiple times, hadn't she? While trying to get away from those - those murderers? Gale moved her hands around and felt herself tenderly, expecting to squeal in pain. Instead, she found something even more curious - her clothes had been replaced. She couldn't feel the smooth dress she'd been wearing when she had been attacked; her attire now was clearly some type of soft fabric.

Weird.

Gale blinked rapidly, trying to get a better view of her surroundings. The vague shapes started materializing into solid forms after several seconds. At least that was a good sign.

"You're awake."

She swiveled her head around towards the source of the noise - a blurry black tree (or a worm standing on two legs, she couldn't tell yet) to her left. It sounded very feminine, from the soft, lilting tone of the voice.

"Your eyesight should be back in few moments."

After a little while, Gale was able to blink away the last of the darkness shrouding her vision. She looked around curiously, trying to get her bearings. She was sitting in a rather large seat that was harnessed to the wall by a heavy mechanism. The space in which she currently resided was fairly large for a single room - perhaps twenty, thirty feet wide - with clusters of neatly placed machinery dotting the area. Power cords glowing blue and red glowed along the walls and ceiling. pulsing with energy. She panned her head left again, and found the woman (not a worm or a tree) who had talked to her, sitting on a crate and looking at her intently. Shoulder length brown hair framed a pale face with full lips, bright blue eyes, and a sharp nose. Her skin was quite unblemished, and very naturally - she could've been the cover-girl of any number of fashion brands Gale knew of. The black bandanna wrapped around her forehead only served to accentuate her looks. Her attire fit with her facial appearance - a set of hoodless cream-colored robes were draped around her form. Gale glanced down quickly, and found that her own robes mirrored the woman's.

"You'd taken quite the beating when we picked you up," the woman said.

"I take it I have you to thank for the new clothes?" asked Gale.

"Yes," the woman smiled.

"I - where am I?"

"You are on a ship." She held out her hand. "I am Navigator Ligaea DeFrant."

Gale took the proffered hand and shook it. Despite the delicate appearance of Ligaea's hands, the Navigator's grip was quite firm. "Gale Newman, reporter. Is the _Navigator_ a title?"

"You could say that. I flew this ship here - I navigated it's path."

"Ah. And where is _here_, exactly?"

Ligaea did not answer immediately. She thought about the answer for a while before responding. "We brought you on to this ship so that we could offer you a choice. You were a rembranc-excuse me. You were a reporter on the Citadel before you were attacked, correct?"

"I - yes, why?"

"You are a direct blood relative of Jane Newman, serving crew member on the Alliance Navy vessel _Waterloo_?"

Gale's mouth hung open in shock. How could they have known that without access to her personnel files with the Citadel authorities? "You know that how?"

Ligaea smiled mystically. "I have no idea."

Newman shook her head in disbelief, but didn't press the issue. "So what's this _choice_?"

"You can chronicle the voyages of this ship, to wherever it goes. You will be the first amongst all of your colleagues to document our travels, our deeds, our exploits."

"Look, I hardly know _anything_ about you, or this ship, or where we are, or ... I guess, what I'm trying to say, is that without any further information, I can't make a decision." Gale gulped as a thought occurred to her. "Am I a prisoner on this ship until I give you the answer you want?"

"Hardly."

"So ... I'm free to leave whenever I want to?"

"If that is what you wish, then yes. You can leave whenever you want to."

"Well, that's good to know," nodded Gale sarcastically. "So, what exactly is your ... um ... mission?"

"We are looking for a man. He is known as Commander Shepard."

Gale's eyebrows shot up. If she was telling the truth, then this would send her career skyrocketing. Everyone had heard the rumors, but no one had actually seen him.

"_The _Commander Shepard? The Hero of the Citadel? No one's seen him in over two years, you know. What makes _you_ think you can find him?"

Ligaea smiled again. "_I_ don't know. But I'm sure we can find him."

Something struck Gale at that moment. "Who's this _we_ you keep mentioning? It's just you on this ship, right?"

"If you decide to stay with us, then I daresay you'll find out who else is on board with me."

Commander Shepard, the story of a lifetime. On one hand, she had no reason to trust these people. On the other hand, she had no reason to mistrust them, either. They'd brought her on to their ship to prevent her from bleeding out to death. Ligaea might not be telling her everything she needed to know, but she didn't necessarily need to know all the details, either.

"Do I have assurances that I won't be shot at, or tortured, or held hostage ... you get the point. Am I screwed if I stay?"

"We'll try our best to keep you safe."

Well, it was better than nothing. At worst, it couldn't be worse than war-time reporting. At best, this could be a true milestone for her so far lackluster career. "I'll do it."

The Navigator nodded. "Then I suppose it's time for you to meet the other crewmembers of this ship. Follo-"

Two red lights appeared a wall-mounted panel next to Gale, accompanied by a muted mechanical wailing. Ligaea rushed to the wall and a dull green panel slid out, showing her a stream of data. She looked up at Gale ominously.

"Proximity alarms. I think we'll have to postpone the introductions for a little while longer."

* * *

><p>Kaidan peered around the large boulder carefully. His HUD's radar showed a navigation marker at the last known location of the radar anomaly two hundred meters ahead and slightly to the right of his position. He knew that if this <em>was<em> Cerberus, it wasn't advisable to get into a firefight with them. Instead, he'd fall back to the Colony and prepare for whatever it was Cerberus was going to throw at him. First, though, he needed to recon the immediate area, and get an accurate reading on how many men the Colony might be facing.

The Staff Commander scanned his right flank with his Avenger. His helmet sensors read no human lifesigns anywhere - the only thing that was present was the gentle green of the woodlands, swaying back and forth quietly. Native avians flew from tree to tree, knowing nothing else other than their own business. Kaidan started forward, gently pushing aside branches to prevent any loud noises that could give away his position. He started to circle around the anomaly in a widening pattern, stopping every few minutes to check the area for any signs of intrusion.

Several minutes passed like this, with Kaidan stopping, kneeling down to the ground, and then getting back up. Eventually he completed his circular path, and found that there had been no traces of anyone wandering around in the clearing. From all his different vantage points, he'd determined that the anomaly was a ship (as if that hadn't been obvious enough when he'd seen the radar images). It wasn't of any design he remembered - it was fairly large, perhaps thirty or forty meters in length with wings that extended nearly as far out from the body of the craft. Beyond that, he couldn't make out the exact form of it - even though the sun was out and the ship had landed on the outer edge of a clearing, what appeared to be a stealth coating scattered the light and made it difficult for even Kaidan's helmet optics to catch its shape. He clicked open his helmet comm to report back to Durand.

"Base, this is N-seven-one, do you copy?" After several extended moments of dead airwaves, a reply came through.

"N-seven-one, this is Base. I read you. Sorry about the delay, we're experiencing some comms failures here. What's your status, sir?"

"Nothing so far. As far as I can tell, no one's exited the ship so far."

"I can send a Grizzly over to reinforce your position, sir."

"Negative. I'm coming back to the Colony. Increase patrols and enforce a curfew. Tell the Colonists that there's been ... been a pack of hazardous life forms sighted near the Colony, and that you're increasing security until we can access that they aren't a threat."

"Yes, sir."

"Alenko out." Kaidan signed off the link, looking around and observing the immediate area. The fact that no one had left the ship was very odd, but then again, the disappearance of entire colonies worth of humans was odd, too. He continued to stand there for a few moments longer, and made to turn around when he heard a fleeting noise off to his left.

"Who's there?" he barked, snapping his Avenger up and bracing it against his shoulder. For a moment there, a blip had appeared on his HUD radar. It'd been crossing from left to right behind him, very fast ... Kaidan swung the rifle left and right, but his helmet caught nothing. "I _know_ you're there, Cerberus! Where are yo-?"

"Who is Cerberus?"

Kaidan whipped around, holding his M-8 Avenger at the ready. Where had that voice come from? "What?" _  
><em>

"Who is Cerberus?"

What kind of a question was that? "Where are you?" Kaidan twisted his head from side to side, trying to find the source of the voice. All of a sudden, his helmet radar pinged loudly, and he froze.

Whatever it was, it was right behind him.


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's note: **blue zombies = husks.

**Chapter 21**

"Who are you?" asked Kaiden, still not turning around to face whoever was behind him. He felt a buzzing in his temples - a side effect of reaching out with his mind and preparing his biotic abilities. He could see (both mentally and visually) several good-sized rocks on the mossy ground around him, and he prepared to clench his fist and send them flying. An aura of blue-purple energies surrounded his left hand, which had dropped down from supporting the body of his Avenger.

"Not Cerberus."

Right. "Then who are you?"

"Who are _you_?"

"I'm an Alliance Marine."

There was no reply, and Kaidan gritted his teeth in anticipation of the sharp pains that would undoubtedly accompany usage of his biotics. The blip on his radar started to fade out - he'd have to let one of the mechanics take a look at it when (and if) he got back to the colony.

"Who are you?" asked Kaidan for the last time.

"Follow me. Your colony is under attack."

Kaidan turned around slowly, his eyebrows raised. Behind him stood a muscular humanoid, slightly taller than Kaidan himself, clutching an extremely long sniper rifle of unknown manufacturing. It wore a black bodysuit with interlocking plates of armor strapped on to the surface of it. It could've been wearing a helmet, but it looked to Alenko like it was more of a mask. A dark black visor stretching across its eyes with a grey mouthpiece linked to the visor.

"That's not possible. I just spoke to one of the soldiers stationed there." Kaidan clicked open his helmet comm, and hailed Durand. "Lieutenant, respond." He kept his biotics charged - this 'revelation' could be a ruse to catch him off-guard. For added effect, he kept the Avenger pointed in the being's direction.

No answer was forthcoming on the radio. "Lieutenant, this is N-seven-one, please respond." Kaidan raised his left hand and slapped the side of the helmet several times. "Durand, if you can hear me, use your omni-tool and get back to me, damn it."

The humanoid just turned around and started walking towards the direction of the colony. The Staff Commander followed it, a bit shell-shocked at the turn of these events.

"If you're not Cerberus, then who are you? And how did you know that something's wrong at the colony?"

"Ship's sensors," it replied curtly. Either it was incapable of speaking in sentences, Kaidan surmised, or was just extremely anti-social.

"That ship back there is yours? The ship with the sensors?" he asked.

"No."

"Then what ship's sensors were you talking about?"

"That ship back there."

"Right ..."

It didn't offer an explanation.

The pair continued their trek through the woods in relative silence. Kaidan knew he wouldn't get anything else out of it, and it felt no further need to communicate anything else to the Staff Commander, such as who it was or why it was here. Kaidan continued to attempt and reach Lieutenant Durand, but to no avail. It was as if something was jamming their signals. He still wasn't counting Cerberus out, but he had to know if there was something else out there that could be responsible for the mass disappearances.

The being stopped abruptly, and looked up at the sky through the trees. It looked at Kaidan and jerked a finger upwards. As soon as Kaidan looked up, he involuntarily brought his weapon up. Hanging suspended in the sky was a massive ship, rocky in composition. His helmet auto-zoomed into various features on the hull, and he shook his head slightly as he noticed the features. Even through leaves and branches obscuring his view, it was obvious what the vessel was, and who it belonged to.

"A Collector ship? They can't be behind this ..."

"Down!" The humanoid grabbed Kaidan and threw him down before dropping itself. Kaidan heard a dull whine noise grow louder and louder, and he lifted his head off the ground, searching for the source of the noise. After several seconds, a large spherical ship zoomed by overhead, paying them no attention. Sunlight glinted off its hull as it passed them, intent on pursuing some hidden agenda of its own elsewhere. The two of them climbed back to their feet and started walking with increased pace back to the colony.

"Something's coming over the radio," said Kaidan. Both of them continued heading towards the colony, but the humanoid turned its head slightly towards Kaidan in response.

"Sen- ... reinforce ... barricades, forget the re - ..." Kaidan slowed for a moment and smacked his helmet again, but nothing was forthcoming. He looked up briefly at the humanoid through his clear visor. "We need to pick up the pace."

Both of them started sprinting towards the colony.

* * *

><p>Lieutenant Durand fired her Avenger blindly around the edge of the doorway, spraying the immediate area with a hail of rounds. Under the cover of the barrage, several Marines sprinted across the street, taking glancing hits on their barriers before they leapt through the doorway and into the habitat section Durand was holed up in. She did a headcount as they came in, and totaled them up - five Marines. All of them huddled down close to the floor against shelves and counters, avoiding the fire that blasted through the habitat section's windows, throwing up burned sheets of paper and scarring the walls black.<p>

"Who's got the Mattock?" she barked out, quickly reloading her weapon. One of the Marines sidled forward on his knees, panting and holding up the weapon she asked for.

"Here, ma'am."

"Alright, listen up. I count fifteen hostiles closing in on our position down the street, about sixty meters up. On my mark, we'll split up. Three of us will stay here and serve as a rear guard. The other two will head up to the Proper control hub - it's raised three levels high, perfect for a designated marksman. Might be some other Marines still back there, too. Make sure to stay within the confines of the modified kinetic barrier, or those bug swarms will get you. When you're set, signal the rest of us. We'll pull back to the barricades in the main town square in front of the hub, and hope to hell we can hold them off. Now, sync up your omni-tools with mine." As they complied, her HUD lit up with their names and weapons.

"Corporal Laws, you're the marksman. Martinez, you make sure Laws gets to the hub, understood? Matthews, Steinrun, you're here with me."

The Marines all nodded, bobbing their heads up and down in recognition of her orders. She raised her head and peeked over counter she was pressed up against. The hostiles - Collectors, she'd figured out from the vague descriptions she had heard while still in Basic Training school - were moving up the street in one main group, holding their weapons aloft ominously. She ducked back down before they saw her.

"Alright, let's move! Marines, give them hell!" she yelled. At the shout, Laws and Martinez bolted out the rear door and started sprinting down the back alley towards the town square. The rest of the Marines vaulted the counter and opened fire on the Collectors through a front-facing window that offered a panoramic view of the street, forcing their enemies to duck back behind the roadblocks and barricades already set up by the colonists and Marines in the early stages of the attack. Those aliens that didn't manage to get back into cover were torn apart as M-8 Avenger rounds ripped into them, tearing chunks of their flesh off violently and spraying their comrades with yellowish green blood. All three of the Marines kept up the barrage as they stood at the windows of the habitat section, unloading their clips at the enemy.

"I'm out, reloading!" shouted Steinrun, before she ducked down below the windowsill. Durand and Matthews continued to fire even as their counters dipped down to zero. Before Steinrun popped back up, though, the Collectors began to open fire. Blue shots whizzed past Durand and Matthews, some hitting their barriers as they flew by. Both of them fell down to reload while Steinrun opened fire, selectively taking down any Collectors that kept their heads up for too long.

"Laws, are you at the hub yet?" radioed Durand.

"Almost ... yes! Yes, we're here," replied an out-of-breath voice. "You might want to get out of there, Lieutenant, I count ... six ... no, seven of the blue zombies closing in on your position, via a secondary alley to your left."

"Shit," swore the Lieutenant. There were no windows on the left side of the habitat section they were in. And from what she'd learned in the ten minutes that they'd been fighting for their lives, the blue zombies were excellent climbers able to scale even the smoothest of surfaces. "Alright, let's get out of here! Steinrun, go!"

Durand watched the female corporal run out the back entrance, her kinetic barrier flashing visibly every time a shot glanced her. The Lieutenant and Matthews loosed off shots at the Collectors slowly advancing down the street parallel to the habitat section, their Avengers whining loudly as they discharged shots towards the aliens. As soon as Steinrun radioed that she was clear, Durand jerked her head at Matthews. "Go, I'll cover you!"

He nodded and ran out the back door as Steinrun had done, ducking behind the counters to avoid any stray shots hitting him. Durand depressed the trigger on her Avenger angrily, forcing a Collector out from the barricade it had been hiding behind. As soon as it rolled out, a shot from Laws slammed into its head, dropping it instantly.

"Nice shooting!" radioed Durand. In response, several more Mattock heavy rifle shots thudded into the five or so remaining Collectors. Having gotten the rest of the soldiers with her back towards relative safety, she vaulted over the counter to head through the back door. She stopped dead in her tracks when she realized what was waiting for her.

A blue zombie stood with its half-mechanical jaw hanging open, a disgusting ooze dribbling down its chin.

The Lieutenant gritted her teeth inside her helmet fiercely and snarled wordlessly. She clenched her right hand, letting the Avenger drop down in her left, and activated her omni-blade. It traced a brilliant orange arc through the air as she rushed the zombie. Durand hit it square in the chest with her omniblade, lifting it up and carrying it backwards while it wailed at being put into such a disadvantageous position. The Lieutenant's momentum carried her and the zombie straight into a large dumpster in the alley. The impact crumpled the side of the dumpster and snapped the zombie's head back, leaving it at an awkward angle. Behind her, emerging from an adjacent alley, were the rest of the zombies.

"Lieutenant! On your six!" reported Laws.

Durand chanced a quick look behind her and saw the zombies pivoting to face her as they came into view of her. She started to run down the alley and saw Mattock shots come flying down and keep the zombies at bay. It took her a few seconds to clear the alley and make it into the square, and by that time, Laws had neutralized all the slow-moving zombies behind her with precision shots with his Mattock.

She blew into the main square, scattering ejected thermal clips with her feet as she ran towards the hub. As soon as she reached a barricade, she slid down behind it, scrambling to push her back up against the reassuring concrete. To her right, Martinez manned a barricade of his own while he stared down the barrel of his Avenger at one of the several streets that flowed into the square. Durand reloaded her weapon quickly and looked over at Martinez.

"What's our status?"

Martinez jerked his head back towards the central hub, which rose up nearly thirty feet into the air. "You chose the right location to fall back to, ma'am. Remnants of first, second, and third squads were holed up in here defending the north face of the hub, where the Mako barrier generators are. You might want to head in and talk to them before the baddies regroup."

Durand nodded and struggled up, her limbs still trembling from the adrenaline surge of the close encounter with the zombie in the alley. She trotted into the ground level of the hub, and a Marine hustled up to her from a hallway to her left.

"Ma'am! Sergeant Hobbs is on the second level at the communications consoles. If you'll follow me." The Marine beckoned and led her up a short flight of stairs into another habitat section. The lights in the entire structure were sputtering on and off as the local backup generators struggled to cope with the widespread loss of power to the colony.

The second level of the hub was not the same as Durand had remembered it. The last time she had been here, two days ago, leafy green plants had been every corner and sections of power-regulation machinery had been neatly arranged in the area. Now, it was filled with Marines, bustling to and fro - some kept watch at the windows, while others tended to wounded soldiers. Like the stairway, the lights here were sputtering on and off as well, with most of the ambient lighting coming from the sunlight through the windows and the glow of what machinery still worked. Durand navigated around the clusters of machinery, walking past a small group of wounded Marines, to the center of the room. An unarmored marine sat in a reclining chair, rapidly manipulating the holographic interface of a communications console.

"Sergeant?" asked the Lieutenant, walking over and looking down at the dark-skinned man. He tapped for a few moments longer at the console, his omnitool rotating in response, before acknowledging Durand.

"Lieutenant. I've been monitoring comms throughout the colony - looks like we were hit hard and fast."

"Any news from the living areas or the barracks?" she asked.

Hobbs shook his head, some dirt falling off his blue beret as he did so. "Ever since we started getting jammed, comms went to hell. The colony's got a pretty big signal booster, so that helped in getting some signals through. But anything outside the Proper just sends back dead airwaves. The only thing we know about what happened anywhere else is from Sergeant Davidson-" Hobbs pointed at one of the wounded Marines "-is that everywhere _but_ the Proper got slammed. Before he went into shock, he said something about 'heavy casualties' and 'giant, armored bugs'."

Davidson had been in charge of the outlying patrols, as ordered by Durand several hours ago when Commander Alenko had gone. He'd had first and second squads under his command when he'd left. "How many made it out of there before the little bug swarms got them?"

"Three."

Durand shook her head in frustration. "Anything else to report?"

"Communication with all civilian parties was lost about five minutes ago. Davidson also said something about stasis pods and civvies as he was getting hauled in, but we don't know what that's all about. I've been monitoring all frequencies in case Commander Alenko tried contacting us, but nothing so far," Hobbs said adjusting dials and knobs on the console's holographic display.

"And the status of the generators?"

"They're working fine so far. The entire Proper is covered by a huge bug-swatter. A few civilians are bunkered down in a garage west of here - doorway's fused shut. I told them we'd bust them out if we got out of here alive."

Lieutenant Durand nodded and left Hobbs to his work. She had a defense to organize.

Durand snorted to herself. A defense? A last stand.


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note: **this is basically my Shepard, from my playthroughs of ME1-3. Black dude, a little hair on his head, stubble, parrot-y nose, paragon, romanced Liara in ME1, kept Wrex and Kaidan alive. When I get the chance I'll FRAPS him and put the image up on Flickr or something to help visualize him, if I feel like it.

**Chapter 22**

**Normandy SR-2 Communications Room**

Commander Shepard watched the wooden table retreat into the floor disinterestedly. Not much of anything interested him nowadays - it all seemed like a bland sideshow to what had happened in the past two years. Being brought back from the dead still didn't sit well with him - in the week or so since his escape from the Cerberus station where he'd been surgically patched together bit by literal bit. Every night cycle, he'd sit in his Cabin, staring through the window on the ceiling and watching the mystical waves of FTL travel. Every night, he went through the loss of the SSV Normandy in his head, cursing and raging against himself for his mistakes. He should have seen the attack coming. If he had, twenty-one men and women would still be alive, serving with him and the Normandy. What right did _he_ have to be alive, while they passed on into the depths of memory?

He knew he couldn't change the past. But that didn't stop him from hating himself with ever fiber of his being.

During the days, he was able to put all of that behind him. During the days, he was a soldier, and a leader. Leaders dealt with loss and moved on. To his crew, with the exception of Joker (who knew what and how Shepard felt, since he'd gone through it with the Commander), he was an exceptional leader. But away from his duties, the hate and anger gnawed away at his sanity like termites on wood.

Shepard blinked away the thoughts as he stepped forward onto the communication pad. It scanned him, an orange grid moving up his body, and a hologram of the Illusive Man appeared. As usual, the man was sitting on his chair, cigarette in hand. Shepard sometimes wondered whether he actually got off it at any point during the day.

"Shepard, I think we have them," the Illusive Man began quickly. "Horizon, one of our colonies in the Terminus Systems just went silent. If it isn't under attack, it soon will be. Has Mordin delivered the counter-measure for the Seeker swarms?"

The Commander shook his head. "Not yet."

"Let's hope he works well under pressure. There's something else you should know." The Illusive Man took a long drag from his cigarette before continuing. "One of your former crew, Kaidan Alenko - he's stationed on Horizon."

Well, that was certainly surprising. Shepard didn't feel particularly eager to meet such a stark reminder of his past failure, but to see a friendly face in these times couldn't hurt. "Send the coordinates, we'll head straight there."

The Illusive Man bobbed his head up and down slightly. "This is the most warning we've ever had, Shepard. Good luck."

Shepard watched the hologram dissolve into thin air, and looked up. "Joker, set a course for Horizon. I've got to go see the Professor."

* * *

><p>The UT-47 Kodiak shuttle rattled as it entered the atmosphere. Shepard put a hand on his thigh and leaned forward on it, glancing briefly at Grunt and Zaeed Massani. The latter's head lolled on his shoulders - to the Commander, it almost looked like he was dozing off. Grunt, on the other hand, clenched and unclenched his fists repeatedly, grinding his teeth together in a rather loud fashion. The Commander was clad in his signature steel grey N7 armor, complete with the (in his opinion) reassuring confines of a rebreather helmet. Shepard clicked his radio on, opening a line back to the Normandy.<p>

"Joker, we have any update as to the status of the colony?"

"There's a lot of interference down there, Commander, but there's also a helluva lot of activity down there. Hell, I'm surprised we're even picking it up, no wonder no one not in orbit wasn't."

"What do you have?"

"There's a lot of comms chatter - sounds like some Alliance Marines are holed up in the Colony Proper. I tried to tell them that they're about to get their asses saved, but I don't think the signal broke through. I've uploaded the coordinates to the shuttle VI. Just sit back and relax, Commander. Oh, and before I forget - a Collector ship is sitting buck-naked on the ground about a mile out of the colony. I'm going to keep the Normandy as far back as I can; I don't want to get blown to pieces again."

Shepard grunted and severed the connection. He hoped the VI would get them there in time - a feeling of urgency stole over him as he sat back on the bench. Those Marines wouldn't be killed if he could help it.

"Grunt. Zaeed."

Both of them looked at Shepard quickly.

"Joker says that there are still Marines are down there, alive and fighting. We have to help them until the Alliance can send reinforcements." Even he was sometimes surprised at the sheer conviction he could inject into his voice. Zaeed nodded while Grunt simply continued to squeeze his fists.

"Can't wait to bring the fight to these buggers," said Zaeed. Grunt started grinning widely, chuckling to himself.

* * *

><p>"Approaching drop zone," announced a feminine mechanical voice. "Fifteen seconds."<p>

Shepard gripped the overhead railing tightly, swaying with the motions of the shuttle. Next to him, Zaeed stood in much the same manner, as a veteran of war would. Grunt continued to chuckle to himself behind them - what about, Shepard didn't particularly feel like asking. In what few chats he'd had with the Krogan on board the Normandy, he was a perfect specimen of his species: generally psychotic, hungry for war, and impatient. He wasn't the relative calm deadliness of Wrex that Shepard had grown accustomed to when chasing Saren down two years ago.

"Five seconds." A wild rush of air blew in to the shuttle's hold, buffeting all three of the crew inside. Shepard's visor quickly adjusted to the glare presented by the sunlight.

"We have reached the drop zone," informed the shuttle's VI unnecessarily. All three of them jumped out and landed on the lush green surface of Horizon. Shepard pulled his Vindicator off his back and held it up as he examined the immediate area. Bland white habitat sections, typical of all the outlying colonies that hadn't seen more expanded development, dominated their view. The shuttle had dropped them off at a street littered with the telltale signs of battle. Grenade craters and dead Collectors littered the roadway. Ahead a ways a large blue bubble distorted their view. Shepard linked up his helmet feed to the Normandy's.

"Interesting! Very, very interesting!" radioed Mordin. It was difficult to make out what he was saying through the interference, and Shepard reckoned that all contact would soon be lost with the Normandy as they progressed towards the stranded Marines.

"What?" asked Shepard.

"That is how they deal with the swarms. Yes, yes! That's how they keep them out! Any one of your Alliance's wheeled vehicles would do the job. Calibrated correctly, and with enough vehicles linked up, the seeker swarms would be neutralized effectively. Brilliant."

"That's _human ingenuity_, Professor," Zaeed grated.

"Indeed it is," chuckled Mordin. "Still, only temporary. Once the generators run out, impossible to escape swarms. My solution has potential to be permanent. Needs work, though. Credit where credit is due."

"Alright. Let's move out! Grunt, take point."

The Krogan lumbered forward ahead of Shepard and Zaeed, holding his Eviscerator out in front of him. Shepard followed behind him covering their left flank, and Massani behind Shepard covering their right. The three of them advanced slowly towards the barrier bubble in a ten-meter spread, checking every street and alley for enemies.

"I don't see any bodies other than Collectors," mused Zaeed. Shepard nodded in agreement.

"Because they're getting frozen," said the Krogan. Shepard and Massani looked towards Grunt as he peered into a habitat section, sweeping it with his shotgun. Both of them came over to look at what Grunt had observed. Inside the habitat section were several humans - some standing and some on the ground. All of them were frozen completely stiff by an unknown force. It made for a ghastly scene - all of them had been either running or crawling their way out of the habitat section when the swarms had reached them. Expressions of fear and horror were plastered on their faces. As they took in the grim view, Grunt trotted off down the street to make sure no Collectors were around.

"Come on." Shepard tapped Zaeed on the shoulder. The mercenary seemed to be transfixed by the sight, his mouth held slightly open. "_Zaeed_. Those Marines need us, or they'll end up like these people here. We can't let that happen."

Zaeed snapped his mouth shut and shook his head to clear it. "I've seen bad, Shepard, but these people are still alive. It must be a living hell for them, getting carted off to that ship and who knows what ..."

"I know. We'll help them afterwards. For now, we have to continue -" Both of them snapped their Vindicators up as gunfire erupted near them.

"C'mere and get some!" came a throaty roar. Shepard and Zaeed backed out of the habitat section and looked down the street. Fifteen Collectors were flying in towards Grunt over the tops of habitat sections.

The Krogan blew several of them out of the sky with his Eviscerator before they landed, taking cover behind several upturned crates after taking the shots. Shepard motioned Zaeed to the far side of the street while he moved up quickly himself, spraying shots towards the Collectors and killing three of them as they dropped down to the ground. Massani blew the arms off one Collector before proceeding to shoot out the legs from underneath another.

Shepard let his kinetic barrier take the brunt of several hits while he continued running towards the Collectors, who had now all landed. Ahead of him, Grunt took notice of Shepard's trajectory and roared his approval. The Krogan leaped over the crates he had been taking cover behind and charged the group of enemies. They ran and scattered to avoid the brunt of his brutal run. Several Collectors didn't get out of the way in time and were smashed aside as Grunt ran through them. Meanwhile, Zaeed continued to selectively gun down Collectors and rapidly thin their numbers before they had a chance to take cover.

Finally, the Commander reached Grunt's position and plowed his fist into a Collector Drone that had been looking at Grunt. As it staggered away from him, he ripped it apart with close-range Vindicator shots. Shepard switched targets and began systematically mowing down the remaining Collectors, who were milling about confusedly at being thinned down so quickly as well as at being attacked from multiple directions. Grunt blasted Collector after Collector into gobbets of flesh with his Eviscerator in concert with Shepard and Zaeed. Several moments later, all the Collectors lay dead or in pieces.

"Ah," sighed Grunt happily, blowing flecks of blood off his face. Zaeed ran the remaining distance to Shepard and Grunt, keeping his weapon trained at the sky in case any other Collectors decided to fly in. Shepard took a moment to catch his breath while his squadmates secured the area.

"That was dangerous, Shepard. I don't think the Illusive Man would want you to get yourself killed in a suicide charge before you get the job done," remarked Zaeed.

"Hah! You got some quads, Shepard. I like it." Grunt drew out the word 'like' several syllables, accentuating his assent.

Massani was right. It _had_ been dangerous. Two years ago, Shepard wouldn't have done that. He would've ordered Grunt to draw their fire while Zaeed and him neutralized the Collectors from a distance.

But this _wasn't_ two years ago, Shepard reminded himself. "What's the worst the Illusive Man could do, bring me back to life again?" he said dryly. Zaeed and Grunt laughed.

"These Drones were probably heading to the Colony Proper, where the Marines are held up. If this is any indication, there's more of them on the way there. We need to pick up the pace," the Commander reminded Grunt and Zaeed. The three of them continued down the street and towards the barrier bubble.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chap****t****er 23**

Lieutenant Durand looked at the twenty-odd Marines standing in a circle around her, looking at the lieutenant expectantly. Telling these men and women that this was the last stand wasn't really what Durand had in mind, even though it was the truth. There was nowhere to run, no reinforcements en route to assist them. They would likely be forgotten, marked down on Alliance records as yet another colony that went dark.

But she would have them make quite a significant _bang_ before they went out.

"Alright Marines, listen closely. Those Collectors aren't infinite, they're _finite_. We hold out long enough, and we got the old sandblasters in reserve so that's possible, and we win. They will _not_ make it through our lines. Their dead will pile the ground, and when we get relieved from this forsaken hell, we'll be _fucking legends_ in the Alliance. Who else has held off as many enemies as we have today?"

"Uh, Commander Shepard on Elysium ..." mumbled one Marine. Durand laughed.

"Okay, who else who's _alive_ has done what we've done?"

No one answered, and rightfully so. Kill counts for the surviving Marines were all at least in the high twenties.

"Imagine: every single one of us, as famous as Commander-"

"-Massani, does anyone read me?"

The Marines all looked at Durand, who had clapped her right hand to her ear. "Ma'am?" asked Corporal Martinez, looking at her oddly.

Durand shook her head at him and responded. "Please repeat, who is this?"

"This is Zaeed Massani, we're coming in from the east on ... " Multiple voices, haloed by gunfire, filtered through the connection for a moment. "... an alley off Shanxi Way, and we've got a horde of Collectors on our asses."

"Where did you come fr-never mind. Understood_._" replied the Lieutenant quickly. The Marines stared at her - as far as they knew, no one had made it from the colony. She herself was questioning how a bounty hunter had found himself on Horizon. "ETA?"

"About -" The sound of shots screeched into the radio line, forcing a grunt from Massani "- a minute or so!"

"We've got incoming! Looks like fifty, sixty-plus hostiles, and ... oh, hell! We got heavies incoming! Those huge bugs again!" a Marine up on overwatch in the hub shouted down.

"You're clear to enter," Durand radioed over. The line went blank in response.

The Lieutenant hastily started issuing instructions to the Marines in front of her. waving her arms emphatically in all directions, pointing through the walls of the ground level of the central hub.

"I need three Marines to stay here and hold the north barricades. Matthews, take Steinrun and get up top with Laws. Get some sniper rifles from the cache on your way up, we'll need the firepower. Three more of you head west and man those barricades. The rest of you, we're going east to Shanxi Way and meeting the Collectors head on. Let's kick some ass, Marines!"

The Marines all nodded strongly. "Move it!" Durand yelled, spurring them to action. She took her helmet, which had until now been in her hands, and slipped it over her head. Durand fastened it into place and blinked as a HUD flashed into existence. Marine IFFs popped up towards the left of her holographic screen, in addition to ammunition counters for her weapon and virtual waypoints indicating the locations of each of the clusters of barriers.

The Marines broke into three groups quickly. Two headed out the main hub entrance, splitting up to go and man their respective barricades. Fourteen of them filtered out afterwards, and Durand followed them out into the sunlight. She made her way through the Marines to the forefront of the group as they rounded the corner and came to face Shanxi Way. The Marines rapidly broke into two groups of seven, each taking up flanking positions on either side of the street in two large stalls that had previously served as vendor shops.

"Cover the windows. If anything comes through the alleys, overwatch'll let us know. We just have to give Massani and whoever is with him enough time to get safe before we pull back, and take out as many of those aliens as humanely possible. No unnecessary shit - no one's getting killed here." Durand pointed Marines to various positions around shelves and item display stands so that they had both cover and good lanes to fire through. The Lieutenant took up a position behind a holographic newsstand that somehow still functioned.

"Steady, Marines. Overwatch, how far are they?"

"Almost there. You should be seeing them -"

"Now," finished Durand. A figure in N7 armor had leaped over several crates and landed on one knee, twisting around and loosening off several shots behind him. Return fire grazed his shields, forcing him back into cover as a Krogan bulled through a dumpster and sent it flying in his attempts to reach safety. A third figure stumbled into view from the alley, his kinetic barriers flashing wildly as several large, blue beams slammed into it and drained them quickly. Just before his shields overloaded, he fell into cover, panting hard. The Krogan and the man in the N7 Armor shot sporadically at the unseen swarm of Collectors that were shooting back.

"Massani, you've almost made it! Get your asses over here so we can cover you!" Durand radioed over. Massani, the man in the yellow armor, rose up from the ground, nodding and beckoning to his comrades. They all started sprinting down Shanxi Way, covering the few hundred feet that separated them and the Marines' positions rather quickly.

Every soldier waited with baited breath, waiting for the Collectors to come into view. Massani and his two friends continued sprinting towards the Marines. They blew into the barrier-bubble protected area and darted past the Marines' position. Durand stuck her head out the exit for a moment, watching them as they ran behind several barricades and collapsed, their heavy panting evident by their heaving shoulders.

"Here they come!" yelled Martinez from the other vendor stall. The lieutenant pulled her head back quickly and retook her position behind a counter facing outwards towards the street.

Blue zombies ran into the street from the right (Durand's side) and from several alleys that snaked in between various buildings. They ran into a wall of multicolored weapons fire, all of hunch-backed aliens getting thrown backwards as they were peppered with disciplined fire from the Marines. Collectors ran and flew in to view several seconds after, but they fared no better. The Marines left none of the aliens alive - every single Collector was killed as their bodies were perforated with Avenger shots. This mindless massacre continued, the Collectors dying by the droves. Every time one fell to the Marines' disciplined fire another took its place, and through this selfless sacrifice, the Collectors gained ground, yard by yard.

"We can't keep this up much longer!" yelled a Marine next to Durand. She took several precise shots, laying a blue zombie on its back as its legs blew out from underneath it. She shouted wordlessly in frustration as her Avenger ran out of ammo, forcing her down behind cover to reload. Durand patted her torso, searching for extra clips frantically. "I'm out!" the Lieutenant yelled, tossing aside her weapon.

"Shit! One of the huge ones!" yelled a Marine.

Durand looked up through the window and cursed. A huge, four legged mechanical beetle flew into view slowly, floating in the air ominously. Marine fire redirected towards it, but the majority of the gunshots either pinged off its formidable armor, or flashed brightly as they ran into a biotic barrier it was generating. The lieutenant ducked back down as two beams shot out from its eyes, smacking into the front of the vendor stall she was in. The whole place shook violently, and several left-over items from shelves fell down on to the Marines taking cover in the building."Fall back! Ordered retreat, head back in pairs!"

The Marines in the vendor stall with her started running out the entrance, using the cover of their fellows' fire to mask their retreat. Durand unholstered her M-5 Phalanx heavy pistol and snapped off several shots at the Collectors, who were now using the bodies of their dead as cover. Her shots slammed into the meat of some dead zombies, splattering aliens around them with a organic-synthetic mix of blood and vital fluids. The gunfire supporting her efforts slowly diminished as more and more Marines pulled back. Finally, there was only the chattering of one additional Avenger, working in tandem with her to stem the tide of Collectors that was oncoming.

"Time to pull back!" radioed Martinez from the other vendor stall. Now, sniper fire slashed its way through the Collector lines, along with the more rapid shots of a Mattock heavy rifle. Collectors continued to drop dead, but in a far slower rate than before. Durand snapped off several last shots before meeting Martinez in the street and sprinting back to the square, where the Marines crouched in waiting around crates and barricades. Not a single allied lifesign had been extinguished on Durand's HUD. She allowed herself a slight smile as she ran around a large block of concrete and holstered her Phalanx.

"Thanks for the save, Marine," said Zaeed Massani, next to her. Durand gave the bounty hunter and his two compatriots a sidelong glance as she reached down and picked up an older model assault rifle. Chrome lettering on its side labeled it as a Banshee IV rifle.

"How the hell did _you_ end up on Horizon? I wasn't aware there were any people important enough to warrant a _bounty hunter_ here..."

"Ah, well, that's a long story. Suffice to say, we're here to lend a hand. We've got a ship in orbit, but that Collector Cruiser has the firepower to blow it out of the sky. Unless we can get those GARDIAN turrets working."

Sniper fire echoed out from above them, announcing the inbound enemies. The _thunk-thunk_ of the Mattock accentuated the ever-increasing volume of gunfire that was building up all around them. The whine of the newer Avengers contrasted with the smooth _thumps_ that the older, pre thermal-clip era weapons emitted when they fired.

"That was a no-go for us," replied Durand.

"What?"

Durand crawled over and tapped Martinez on the shoulder. "Keep the baddies off the hub for a few, I'm taking the bounty hunter inside. Might have a plan."

Martinez kept firing his Avenger, reaching down for a spare thermal clip as his ammo counter ran low. He nodded in affirmation.

"We've got a map inside. Come on."

Zaeed nodded at the man in N7 armor, who got up in Massani's stead. Durand looked at the man quizzically, but got up anways and ran inside with him. She led him into a room on the ground level stocked with several spare weapons and ordinance. Several maps littered the area, including a large multicolored one that lay on top of a stack of grenades and mines. Durand picked it up and started pointing out areas on it.

"We're here," she said, stabbing her finger at a location in the middle of the map. "The main turret control tower is here." Durand slid her finger over to a location several gridlines away to the north. "This entire area was - and probably still is - filled with Collectors. It's like they knew the towers were a significant threat."

The man nodded, looking intently at the map. He pointed at a side-street and several alleys in quick succession. "These alleys here link Shanxi Way to Primary Street here. The star port is about a quarter of a klick up that road through several habitat areas. If your Marines can make a temporary push up through Shanxi, my team and I can get to those towers and end this."

Durand shook her head adamantly. "I'm not losing any men to what _could be_. If you can guarantee that the GARDIAN turrets will get calibrated and be ready to blow that Collector Ship to hell in time, then I'll agree to this. Otherwise, there's no chance."

The man's visor glinted white as a light flickered on above his head. After a long silence, he dropped his hand down from the map and gripped his assault rifle tightly.

"There's no other choice. The Alliance won't be able to send troops in time to save you."

"You're not from the Alliance? Then where'd you get that N7 armor?" Durand asked pointedly.

"No, and it doesn't matter. What _does_ matter is destroying that Collector Cruiser."

The lieutenant blew air out of her teeth as she gritted them in frustration. "Yeah, if you were willing to volunteer yourself and keep your _team_ here, I'd think about it. Otherwise, no."

"Fine."

Durand stared at the man through her visor incredulously. "You ... you'll do it?"

"Yes."

"Are you _nuts_? We need all the men we can get!"

The man shook his head again. "I'll do what I have to keep the Collectors from winning, but I know you're short-handed." He started walking back towards the entrance to the hub, leaving Durand holding her map, looking rather blank at the rapid turn of events. He turned his head partially sideways to speak to the lieutenant as he left her standing there.

"I just wish I had a Mako this time around."

* * *

><p>Zaeed smashed the trigger of his Vindicator down repeatedly, hitting several Collectors and causing them to stumble out of cover. Gunfire from Marines around him ripped into them and others, putting them down permanently. The <em>clink clink clink <em>of the Vindicator's rapport and the way it bucked into his shoulder was becoming quite the familiar feeling. Beside him, Grunt had swapped his Eviscerator shotgun for something more practical to the longer-range nature of this fight; an old near-infinite-ammo type rifle now chattered away at the enemy from the hands of the krogan. Every few seconds, Grunt would curse as the weapon jammed and overheated, growling ferociously at the weapon.

"Fire in short bursts, Grunt. At your current rate, you won't kill ten of those drones."

"These weapons are puny," the Krogran grumbled angrily. "Might as well just charge the damn bugs, kill more with my hands."

"Zaeed!"

The bounty hunter turned around at Shepard's voice. "What's the plan?" he asked as the Commander came down into cover beside him.

"I'm headed to the starport to try and get those GARDIAN batteries working. You stay here with Grunt, and -"

"Like hell you will!" Zaeed gripped Shepard's shoulder and forced the Commander to look at him. "I'm already on suicide watch with that damn Krogan, but I didn't know you had a death wish, too. Don't think I don't know why you're doing this, damn it."

Shepard shook his head. "You're staying here with Grunt, and that's an order."

"You can't give us orders, you're not military anymore -"

"My ship, _my_ missions, _my_ _rules_!" snarled Shepard. "You don't have a choice. Keep the Marines together until I get back."

Massani mouthed wordlessly at the sudden flare of anger Shepard displayed.

"I need a distraction. It'll take me about ten minutes to get to the spaceport - communications with the Normandy should have cleared up after I get clear of this mess," Shepard continued.

"Alright." Zaeed looked at Grunt, who had been ignoring them while he continued to fire. "Grunt."

The Krogan kept his trigger depressed until the weapon overheated again, then crouched down to hear what Massani had to say.

"What?"

"You wanted to charge at them, right?"

Grunt began to smile widely.

"Yeah ..."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24 ****  
><strong>

Shepard stopped dead in his tracks, his helmet's motion sensor ticking as it detected movement ahead of him. So far, he'd had to take seven detours away from the main road, avoiding as many groups of Collectors as he could. Most of them were transporting stasis pods - what few humans the Collectors had not swept away in the first wave of their attacks were now being taken to their cruiser, parked nearly a mile outside the colony in a large clearing.

A Collector drone flew into view in front of him. Shepard quickly ducked behind an information station to his right, keeping a close eye on his motion sensor. The dot representing the drone bobbed closer and closer to his position. One drone wasn't too bad - he could handle one quietly if it came to that. Wait until it got as close as possible, then leap up to stun the drone, followed by a quick succession of shots to dispatch it.

It was not to be, however, as Shepard grimaced in response to several more dots appearing at the far-end threshold of the motion sensor. He could just make a run for the turret control tower, which was three hundred and twelve meters away in a cargo area located slightly to the west of Horizon's spaceport.

"..Shepard? You read? EDI, boost the signal towards the colony."

"I already am, Jeff."

"Well ... a little more, then..."

Shepard tapped the side of his helmet as quietly as he could. "Joker?"

"Hey! Hey, Commander. We've been trying to get through to you for the last half-hour!"

Shepard checked his motion sensor again before replying. The dots had stopped moving - for now. "Signal finally coming through, then?"

"We've boosted the signal - piggybacked it on to the Kodiak's comms systems. Two's always better than one."

"EDI, we've got a bit of a situation here. GARDIAN turrets that were getting installed on the colony never got to the firing stage. Calibration errors, so I've heard from the Marines here."

"I believe I have a solution, Shepard."

The Commander hadn't been too warm about letting an AI on board the Normandy, but he'd recently started to change his mind. EDI had proved to be invaluable in several situations, offering insight and knowledge that would otherwise have been lost on the team.

"Let's hear it."

"If you can get establish a wireless connection port to a computer controlling the majority of the weapon platforms, I can realign them to fire at the Collector Cruiser."

"Let's do it," replied Shepard. "I'll contact you again once I'm at the turret control tower. Shepard out."

Time was running out. If the Normandy had been able to establish contact with a mere piggybacked signal, that meant the swarms had largely returned to the Cruiser. If the intel the Illusive Man had provided was any good, that could only mean one thing: they had gotten all the humans they needed from here, and were planning to leave. The Commander groaned as the dots representing the Collector drones remained visible on his motion tracker. He couldn't afford to move with stealth anymore. He unclipped several flashbangs from his utility belt and hefted them.

"Here goes ..."

Shepard stood up quickly and tossed the flashbangs. They flew towards the Collectors, several of them bouncing around on the ground like jellybeans. The Collectors all aimed their rifles at Shepard as he ducked back down, counting to five in his head steadily. On cue, several loud explosions sounded in concert. The Collectors scattered left and right, staggering into the sides of habitat shelters and empty stalls that lined the street. Shepard broke cover and bounded quickly through their midst, loosening off several quick shots with his Vindicator and clipping some of the drones. His feet pounded on the ground, throwing up plumes of dirt and debris. Behind him, he heard the chattering of the Collector Assault Rifles start up. Shots whizzed past him in orange streaks. He vaulted over several stasis pods and checked the distance to the control tower: two-hundred and fifty meters.

The Commander slid to a halt as two Scions ambled into the street via a habitat shelter they had been milling about in. Their shoulder-mounted cannons spit a biotic shockwave out towards him. Shepard leapt out of the way, crashing through several stacked boxes in his haste to clear out of the Scions' line of sight.

**+Shepard.+**

A drone buzzed overhead and landed on top of the habitat shelter Commander Shepard was catching his breath behind.

**+There is nowhere for you to run. Troops close in around you. You have failed. The Marines that defy me will be overwhelmed.+**

This drone was different than the others - its eyes glowed, and its body was a mixed hue of bright yellow and the normal brown. Shepard looked up at it. Its voice seemed to come from everywhere - it permeated the very air around Shepard. The drone held a clawed hand up in a fist towards him. Shepard snapped off a trio of shots at it and resumed his desperate run to the turret control tower - one hundred and eighty meters left.

**+Surrender.+**

A normal drone buzzed down in front of him. Shepard shoulder-barged it, the impact barely slowing him down but sending the Collector hurtling backwards. The Commander spared a glance backwards, and saw a gang of husks closing in from behind. Ahead of him, a second group of Husks appeared from several adjoining alleys and streets. Aiming his Vindicator at the group in front of him, he thumbed a small button on the weapon's grip. A single projectile flashed towards the group and struck the center of the gaggle. It exploded with enough force to send the husks flying in a multitude of directions. Shepard laughed maniacally and gunned down the husks as he blew past them.

"Surrender? _Surrender?_" he yelled. "I don't know how you know my name, but I'll make sure it's _burned_ into your memory before I'm finished mopping up your _troops_ today!"

One hundred meters.

**+Your defiance is futile. Defeat is inevitable.+**

The entrance to the cargo area where the control tower was in sight - a green-lit panel next to the double doors signaled an easy entrance, and potentially an easy blockade. The adrenaline pumping through his veins gave him strength to continue running at full speed towards the entrance.

"You tried killing me once! Take a hint - _it didn't work!_" cackled the Commander in between heaving breaths.

Too late, he heard the tell-tale _whump whump_ of Scion's biotic cannon. His knees buckled as a blue shockwave slammed into his back and sent him flying into a habitat section to his right. Shepard hit the wall hard, somehow managing to stay on his feet. His shield indicator flashed and beeped rapidly, notifying Shepard very clearly that his kinetic barriers were completely depleted. He started stumbling quickly towards the control tower, the tip of it now visible behind the high walls of the cargo area. Seventy-three meters left.

"Not bad, not bad at al-" Shepard pitched forward, falling hard to his knees as he was engulfed in flames from behind. He made to stand up again, but more shots hit the rear of his armor, several of them penetrating and biting into his flesh like angry bees. His HUD flashed red repeatedly, and a written warning came into existence in the middle of his field of view. _Full s__uit breach imminent._

He couldn't fail. Not now.

The Commander struggled to right himself as gunfire whacked into the ground around him. Several more shots hit his rear armor, and his HUD became grainy with interference every time.

All he had to do was make it to the tower.

Just seventy meters left.

* * *

><p>Shepard blinked several times. His HUD was still flashing red. It made for quite the contrast with the dull brown of the dirt he was lying face down in.<p>

God, his whole back hurt. It _had_ been on fire before he'd blacked out. The HUD was still functioning, and a quick, pained glance at it told him that sixteen seconds had passed since he'd fallen down. Truthfully, he was a bit surprised that he'd regained consciousness so quickly - an added effect of the modifications Cerberus had made to his body, no doubt. The Commander lifted his head up off the ground to try and find his Vindicator.

He gasped in pain as a hand gripped him by the back of his armor and flipped him over. Above him stood the odd-looking drone, one fist wreathed in fire and the other clutching a Beam Rifle.

**+You will be the instrument of Humanity's ascension, Shepard. +**

The fist crashed down on the Commander's helmet, and he saw nothing.

* * *

><p>Kaidan lay flat on top of the habitat section-tower, peering at the action going on in the colony proper. His helmet zoomed in on the Marines via his Avenger's scope to show him details that were vitally important to how he and the humanoid (who he'd found out was named Stalker, no doubt a code name) were going to assist the Marines. He counted about eighteen Marines from his vantage point who were holding off the Collectors - a Krogan who he had never seen before also came into sight occasionally from around the far side of the central hub. They were doing pretty well against the Collectors so far; with the older type assault and sniper rifles, the Collector's advance had been slowed down to a crawl. Alenko snapped out of the zoomed view as a blinking light in the top-right corner of his HUD alerted him to an incoming communication. The Staff Commander opened a comms channel. Stalker had circled around the hub several streets, aiming to get a better look at what was happening in the colony proper from a different view. "Alenko. What do you have?"<p>

"Six soldiers, far side. Quiet there. Large xenos insectoids bearing down on central tower - seven. Half a klick out."

Kaidan had seen one of the large insect-like creatures get taken down by a series of rapid shots from a re-appropriated Mako's mass accelerator cannon that was now acting as a defense turret. But if there were seven more bearing down on the hub, then the Marines would surely be overrun. Coupled with the large numbers of Collectors closing in on their position, including the blue zombie-like abominations and other ground troops, they wouldn't last ten minutes.

"They won't be able to hold them off for long. We need to do something," replied Kaidan.

"Affirmative." Stalker paused. "ETA for air support is three minutes."

"How long 'till the insectoids make it to the hub?"

"Seventy seconds at current velocity."

Kaidan swore to himself. The Marines would take losses unless the Collectors got hit from behind. He didn't know what the two of them could do to dent the aliens' numbers, but they had to help ease the pressure off the Marines. Alenko blinked his eyes at the HUD's interface rapidly and moved several waypoints onto his HUD display to represent the three main groups of Collectors he had seen moving up towards the hub. They showed up as orange boxes with distances marked above them in bright lettering. "I'm going to see what I can do about taking out those zombies. Can you cover my approach?"

"Yes," Stalker replied curtly.

The Staff Commander scrambled backwards. He slid down the ladder quickly, his feet hitting the ground hard.

"Heading out," radioed Kaidan as he cut off the transmission. As he began trotting around the habitat section-tower he'd been scouting out from, he sincerely hoped that Stalker's 'air support' would reach the Colony in time.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

**Arcturus Station**

"Corporal, report."

Dave Hobart gulped nervously as he prepared to deliver a status update to Major Swanson, his immediate superior.

"Sir, we've lost contact with another one of our colonies."

Swanson looked at him with laser eyes. The Major hadn't taken very well to the news of the other colonies' disappearances, and he wasn't likely to change his outlook on the events anytime soon. "Explain."

"One of our older colonies in the Serpent Sea just went silent in the past day. Horizon, in the Iera System."

The Major chewed at something in his mouth furiously. It wasn't his usual cigar - that much Corporal Hobart knew. Must've been bubble gum.

"What's the nearest fleet? Send out a request for investigation."

Hobart looked at his omni-tool to find the requested information. There were three equally distant flotillas in the area, two on training exercises and one on reserve. "The 45th, 46th, and the 12th scout flotillas are all in the area. The 45th and 46th were scheduled to undergo live-fire weapons demonstrations about an hour ago."

"Get the twelfth on it, then."

"Yes, sir."

The corporal saluted and exited the Major's office quickly. This situation with the Alliance's outer colonies was quickly spiraling out of control, and he didn't want to be anywhere the men and women who called the shots when it finally spun completely away from Humanity's grasp.

* * *

><p><strong>Government Press Room, Arcturus Station<strong>

Amul Shastri squinted his eyes into the intense glare of the camera drones, forcing a smile onto his face to represent an emotion he most certainly was not feeling. His secretary pointed out a journalist in the neatly ordered rows who had her hand raised.

"Minister Shastri, word of the disappearance of the inhabitants of another colony has spread. What's the Alliance's response to these increasing occurences?"

"I'm sorry, but you know as much as I do."

Shastri's secretary attempted to move on to a different question, but the journalist pressed the Minister further. "New Istanbul was home to several thousand colonists, wasn't it? What do you have to say to the families of those lost?"

He toyed with how to answer that; should he just say that their rescue by a force from the future was unpredictably crazy - yet true - and that the families' loved ones would be returned to them? All that information was highly classified. "Again, I know just as much as you do. There's a reason they're called _disappearances_."

"So the Alliance Navy knows nothing of what's going on? What then of the reports that the Seventh Fleet dispatched several vessels to investigate and dealt with the disappearances?"

Amul had to try hard not to gape for a moment. How did she gain access to such classified information? He made a minute motion with his index finger towards the journalist, passing it off as an innocent scratch. His secretary cleared his throat inconspicuously in affirmation of the unspoken request. _Deal with this woman asking the questions and find her source._ "That's classified information, and I suspect you knew that before you brought the issue up. Next question."

Another journalist piped up after being singled out by the secretary. "Will the Alliance continue to go forward with the plans for new establishments outside Citadel-controlled space in the Attican Traverse?"

"Of course. There are many economic opportunities in that area, not the least of which concern rare mineral mining and archaeological sites of interest," he replied, preparing for the inevitable counter.

"Regardless of these disappearances?"

"Regardless of whatever disappearances." Amul turned to his side as his secretary sidled up next to him to whisper in his ear.

"Minister, we've got a problem. Naval Control is reporting that another colony just went dark."

The Minister turned back to the throng of journalists in the room, keeping the same smile on his face. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this press conference short. Thank you."

The lights in his face started to flicker off, one by one, as the journalists began to furiously type away on their holographic keyboard interfaces - no doubt getting stories ready for their respective news outlets. Shastri stepped down off the raised platform and hurried out the exit.

* * *

><p>Minister Shastri leaned back in his authentic leather chair, stretching his back. He stopped abruptly in mid-yawn as an alarm beeped, alerting him to a visitor waiting outside his door. A quick glance at the viewscreen inlaid into his mahogany desk showed him his secretary waiting to enter his office anxiously. Amul tapped away at screen, activating the intercom.<p>

"Come in."

The door slid open smoothly to admit the man. The Minister had chosen him when elected for his office upon several recommendations from his political allies. Typically, secretaries did not make names for themselves, and were expendable. This particular man had particular talents and contacts, though, that did just that. He was head and shoulders above his peers in what services he could provide to the Alliance's parliament. The Minister himself had used his abilities on several occasions already.

"Do you have something for me?" asked Amul.

The secretary pulled out a chair opposite Amul and sat down before replying in a steady voice. "You won't like what I bring."

"With the political pressure put on me by the Council and their politicking about our colonization, I think most news that'll come in will be items I _don't_ like. Shoot."

"Horizon just went down an hour ago - naval traffic controllers reported it in."

Amul cursed under his breath as the secretary continued. "We've dispatched a flotilla to see what's wrong. A reserve unit that was in the area."

"Good. Anything else?" asked the Minister as he rubbed his face wearily.

"The reporter."

_This could be the first good news of the day_, thought Shastri. "Did you find her source?"

"It's the Asari, sir."

_Damn. And so the deluge continues_. "You're sure?"

"Yes, and it makes sense. Coupled with the recent legislation they pushed to prevent Council-affiliated corporations and security groups in assisting the Alliance with issues in the Council-Terminus frontier, you have to give them credit. By making you look politically weak, or at least bound to a limited set of choices by the Alliance Military, they weaken your position -"

"- by making it look like our Military are the ones in control," finished Amul. "It's what I would do in their place. We're cutting them out with the Twenty-Fifth, and they want in."

"Or want the Twenty-Fifth _out_. I don't think they'd go for a full reveal to the Council races, though, to achieve their goals. It's too risky," replied the secretary.

"No." Shastri agreed, propping his head up on a clenched fist thoughtfully. The Council wouldn't be doing this without also maneuvering in front of closed doors with official actions. "Has the Council submitted any ... _formal_ requests I should know about?"

"They want that Spectre, K'Sine, monitoring what we do with the Twenty-Fifth. Hackett's little impromptu meeting backed us into this corner, unfortunately."

"The fewer people that knew about them being on the Citadel was a good decision," Amul said dismissively. "Where is the Spectre now?"

"She stayed on the Citadel with the _Yucatan_ after the _Waterloo_ left to return to New Istanbul. We could have her join up with the ship at the colony - the _Yucatan_ needs to return to Seventh Fleet stationed out in the Armstrong Nebula and facilitate K'Sine's surveillance missions of pirate ac."

"Yes. Send the order through." The secretary got up and started towards the door. "One more thing - you paid off the reporter?"

"Yes, sir. She won't be a problem anymore." The door slid open, and the secretary walked out just as smoothly as he had walked in.

Having the Spectre tag along with the _Waterloo_ had problematic connotations. Her safety was far from guaranteed, and that status would likely get worse with what the Alliance Navy wanted help with.

Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing after all. Amul allowed himself a moment to enjoy this one bit of probable good news.

* * *

><p><strong>Citadel space docks, bay 13-C [Privately owned by Alliance Navy]<strong>

Admiral David Anderson stood at the glass pane, watching shuttles and smaller frigates fly by the larger docked form of the _Yucatan_. It was a fairly atypical high-end Alliance Cruiser, clocking in at nearly four-hundred meters long and armed with three frontally oriented separate mass accelerator cannons. The blocky hull gave it the impression of a huge, armored cardboard box - personally, Anderson preferred the smooth lines of Alliance Frigates. They seemed far more organic, far more natural. Now that he'd been promoted to the rank of Admiral shortly after the off-the-books meeting with Sergeant Pax and his cohorts, he doubted he'd ever get the opportunity to fly in a frigate again. An unfortunate drawback of the new job.

Anderson turned around as he heard quiet footsteps in the hallway behind him. Spectre Lysea K'Sine approached with a default nonchalant look on her face, dressed in a worn-looking set of leather clothing. On the shoulders of her black jacket were two identical orange marks - some sort of clan or family markings, mused Anderson. She had to know why she was here, and her part in the Council's politics, even if she wouldn't admit it. Hell, if it was as clear as day to Anderson, it would have to be at least that clear to an Asari Spectre who'd served for nearly twenty years.

"Admiral. Let's not waste anytime, shall we?" she said briskly. Anderson held a hand out towards the bridge leading to the _Yucatan_'s airlock, and the Spectre strode out in front of him.

"Congratulations on the promotion," Lysea remarked, without turning her head around.

"Thanks," replied the Admiral uncertainly. He wasn't expecting any niceties from the Asari - even within the Spectre community, Lysea had a reputation for being rather blunt and unassuming. "Certainly a change."

"No doubt."

They entered the airlock and waited until the door clicked open before striding onto the main deck of the _Yucatan_. Tens of crewmembers were seated at their respective orange-lit panels, working away to get the cruiser ready to head back to the Armstrong Nebula. The Asari and the Admiral followed a slow-sloped ramp up to the command chair, where Commander Natalie Cellick sat with her uniformed legs crossed. She surveyed her crew for a moment before looking at the approaching duo.

"Welcome aboard, Admiral, Spectre K'Sine."

Anderson nodded his thanks. "I've got new orders for you, Commander."

"We're not heading back to the Seventh's station in Armstrong?" asked Cellick in a surprised tone.

"No. Set course for New Istanbul - you're to meet up with the _Waterloo_ again. I'll discuss where we're going after that in private." The Admiral glanced quickly at Lysea. A ghost of a smile played across the Spectre's face as she noticed the subtle snub.

"Yes, sir," Cellick nodded. "We've prepared the VIP suite on deck three for you - I'll have some crewmen take you there. Spectre K'Sine, we've prepared the same quarters you were in before for you, if that's alright ..."

"That sounds agreeable," the asari replied.

"Set a course for Relay Seven," ordered Cellick to her pilot. The hull of the ship thrummed noticeably at the increase in power output from the generators. Smoke obscured the bridge's viewscreen for a moment as the docking bay clamps lifted. The _Yucatan_ rotated in place as the Citadel slowly drifted away from the hull. Anderson and Lysea stared outside for a few minutes as the Cruiser clawed its way through the misty nebula towards one of the many Mass Relays dotting the area. The Spectre was the first to leave, heading down into the bowels of the ship to her room. The Admiral lingered for a while longer, reminiscing about his short command of the SSV Normandy, before turning to head off into his allotted room.

* * *

><p>Admiral Anderson looked up at the knock at his rooms' door. "Come in," he announced.<p>

Commander Cellick loped into the room. The Admiral got up and pulled out a chair at the desk he was sitting at, perusing various Alliance mission reports. The Commander saluted and took the proffered seat as Anderson returned to his. Cellick was one of the youngest Fleet commanders, having graduated from an officer academy in London at nineteen after an extended stint in college that had left her wanting for something more substantial than a Bachelor's Degree in Ancient History. Anderson's impression of her was well-aided by her instructors and evaluators, who had all offered glowing recommendations. The slender brown-haired Commander was a quick study, and had distinguished herself a year ago during the Battle of the Citadel. As the XO of the SSV _Hastings_, she was forced to take command of the vessel when the captain of the ship was wounded in a series of explosions linked to localized power failures. Cellick then managed to successfully take out three Geth cruisers in some of the most intense knife fighting in recent memory and disrupt several massive fighter screens the synthetics had employed during the battle. She'd been offered her own ship with a promotion if she continued her exemplary service in a year. Anderson suspected that the assignment he was about to give her was the one to finally push her over the hump and get her the promotion to captain that she deserved.

"Your mission as it stood before you left was to head back to the Armstrong Nebula to Seventh HQ." Anderson slid over an information pad to the Commander, who took it. Her sharp grey eyes narrowed as she read the orders.

"The _Yucatan_ and the _Waterloo_ are getting reassigned ... but to what? It doesn't say." Cellick looked up at Anderson with her eyebrows raised.

"That's classified beyond the scope of any infopad I've ever seen," replied the Admiral. Commander Cellick's mouth twitched in amusement, but her eyebrows remained raised. Admiral Anderson continued. "That fleet that appeared over New Istanbul, the fleet that you saw with your own eyes ... it's no joke. That many dreadnoughts, from the sensor readings the _Waterloo _and the _Yucatan_ picked up!"

"Yes, sir. But you know that they pose a threat, too - I'm sure you read that part of my report?"

Truthfully, that _had_ worried the Admiral. But if they had teleporting technology, there was no way anything the Alliance had could defend against that. Humanity would have to work with these newcomers, and not against them. "Yes, I did. The Parliament and the Alliance Navy in particular feel that the benefits to working with them outweigh any of the risks."

"And what did they offer to the Alliance, sir? What did they say they'd give us in return for _not_ being quarantined?"

"That's beyond the scope of what you should know, _Commander_," warned Anderson. Cellick shook her head but said nothing further. "Alliance brass is working towards an integration of the Seventh Fleet with them to form a rapid response task-force to anything that could happen out here in the Frontier past Council Space. You and Captain Womack are going to be spearheading this effort."_  
><em>

Cellick returned to viewing the information pad. "But there's no inaugural mission ..." Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped at what she read next before she mustered the ability to continue. "We're being officially decommissioned?"

"Officially. All of what will happen to and with you is strictly off the record-books," confirmed Anderson.

"And then what? What happens to my crew?" the Commander asked incredulously.

"You'll stay with your ship, of course." Anderson fiddled with the rolled up sleeves of his uniform. "Part of the agreement we have with them is that they'll outfit some of our ships with newer technology. Tech that they're willing to supply to only us. You and Womack will be the first ships to undergo these changes."

The Commander seemed fairly placated at this revelation, but she still looked to be on the edge of her seat. "What are we giving them in return., if I may ask?"

"Mining and building rights to several worlds, including New Istanbul. And some other more ... classified ... choice items." The Admiral cleared his throat in a manner indicative of finality. Cellick took the hint and got up with a nod. The Admiral watched her leave rather stiffly - the incident with the teleported hijack still unsettled her. Hell, it unsettled Anderson himself. The most he could do was to just keep an eye on these soldiers from the future.


	26. Chapter 26

**Author's Note:**don't expect a lot of updates, I'm getting swamped in homework/projects at UW. Sorry peeps.

**Chapter 26**

**Horizon**

"Shoot them down! Shoot them down now!" screamed Durand while trying to stem the flow of blood running down and over the armor plates covering her right leg. One of the huge insectoids had blasted apart a series of barricades, and the shrapnel had taken out several marines. A piece of concrete had also lodged itself in Durand's thigh, making it enormously painful to move.

The mercenary Zaeed loosened off several shots towards Collectors trying to take advantage of the carnage that the insectoids - Zaeed had referred to them as _praetorians_ - were wreaking. He huddled down for a moment, ducking under a blue beam that slammed into a bulkhead door behind him, then popped up and threw several grenades. The combined force of the explosives forced one of the praetorians down as it regenerated its biotic barriers, evident by a maelstrom of energy surrounding its body. Zaeed spared a quick look at the Lieutenant and shook his head, drawing a quick hand across his neck and jabbing his Vindicator back towards the central hub.

"We can't hold here! Order your men to pull back!" shouted the mercenary. Durand ground her teeth in frustration. A marine trying to leap over the remnants of Durand's barricade to find a good fallback position slammed down to the ground, bouncing off the hardened soil, as he was struck by two blue beams simultaneously. His kinetic barriers shattered with a brittle sound almost instantly. The smell of the marine's armor burning away, layer by layer, came through Durand's helmet filters and nearly made her gag. Seeing the marine fall and remain motionless, coupled with the smell of the armor, forced the Lieutenant's hand.

"Fall back!" she yelled, her helmet disseminating the message into the marines' communication network. She struggled to right herself from the prone position she'd been lying in and hurriedly limped into the hub under the cover of cracking sniper fire and the swift chatter of Avengers. Marines filtered through quickly behind her, but not all made it in; some of them were left with no choice but to make their last stands outside the central hub, taking down what seemed like scores of Collectors before they succumbed to enemy fire.

The final living marine came through the door just as Zaeed and the Krogan slammed it shut. Durand motioned to Zaeed, gesturing to a storeroom in a side hallway. She pulled up a display on her HUD and noted the number of green-lit lights that flickered on-screen. The lieutenant started speaking as soon as he walked in behind her.

"We've got eleven marines fit for fighting. Eight more are wounded, but can still shoot. The rest are out. And those GARDIAN batteries still aren't shooting at anything."

Zaeed looked away for a moment, pursing his lips, before answering. "If they aren't activated by now ..."

"We need to move. Get into the woods, where at least some of us can escape."

"Where to?" asked Zaeed. "The Collector's have got swarms of little bugs that'll catch whoever tries to make a run for it. You know that."

The mercenary had a point. Without taking out the Collector Cruiser, they wouldn't have much chance of running anywhere. "We have to try. I _owe_ these men and women that much."

"We should instead try to get to the batteries. The ship I came in can provide local support if we clear that cruiser out."

"Ma'am!" came a shout from outside the storeroom. Durand and Zaeed both looked at a soldier standing at the doorway. "They're closing in."

Durand shook her head. "We'll be cut down before we even make the treeline. "

"Uh, hold a moment, ma'am..." The marine dipped his head down, listening to a radioed message. "Looks like we're receiving a communication."

"From?"

"Commander Alenko, ma'am," he replied. The surprised look on Durand's face was matched on Zaeeds', even though the mercenary couldn't see her expression behind the helmet.

"Patch him through to me," Durand said quickly. After a short delay, she heard the reassuring voice of Commander Kaiden Alenko in her ear.

"Durand?"

"Here, sir."

"At least you're still alive. What's the status of the Marines?"

"We're at about twenty percent strength remaining, sir," she reported. "They took out about half of us in the first ten minutes of the attack, before we even knew what was happening, and then -"

"Lieutenant, listen carefully. We need to get to those GARDIAN batteries. You and the rest of the Marines that can fight have to make it to the starport."

Durand groaned inwardly. "Yes, sir, but how exactly are we supposed to - "

"You've got local air and fire support coming in about forty five seconds. Get the Marines ready to move and link up with me ... I'm uploading a nav marker now."

"Ah, yes sir," acknowledged Durand hesitantly. "Sir, what's - "

"If we get of this, I'll explain everything," Commander Alenko cut her off hurriedly. "Just get everyone ready to move. When the big ones go down, you make a run for the marker." The line clicked once, indicating that the Commander had shut off the radio from his end.

"Massani, get the marines ready to head out _now_. Have them meet me at the front entrance." Zaeed nodded and ran out of the storeroom. Durand took a salve applicant of medi gel and lathered her right thigh with it. She was probably putting on too much, and her body would make her pay for it later, but for now she needed it. Things were about to get very hairy.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Demon of Ullanor, <strong>_**Bridge**

"Sergeant," acknowledged Lord Admiral Ajall curtly. The bridge of the _Demon of Ullanor_ was relatively silent, as it had been for the past several days. The only periods of activity had come when the fleet had undergone a short simulated fire exercise in order to keep the Army elements from asking too many questions. It had been a welcome reprieve from the dull boredom of waiting for Pax to return from the center of civilization in the galaxy, the Citadel. Finally, the Sergeant stood next to Ajall's command throne, ready to offer an update on the Twenty-Fifth's next moves.

"I left the Alliance craft _Waterloo_ to bring you this news personally." Pax stared out the viewscreen - the way he looked out at the stars seemed as if he was trying to discern something, a pattern, in the vastness of space. Ajall had often tried to observe the universe with such a disposition, but had never actually found anything. More often, he'd find himself inexorably bored after several minutes. "We have been given permission to garrison Terra. If you desire it, the Titan detachment and a sizable force can now be sent there, along with several ships from the fleet. The Ark Mechanicus and its supporting vessels will leave for various worlds that they have noted as possible mining and outpost worlds shortly. Several planets have appeared on scans that do not appear to be near colonized currently by any race in this galaxy. My vessels will remain with you for the time being, until events dictate otherwise."

Ajall mulled the information over in his head. "I'll contact the Princeps about his new posting and orders. For the Army, General Bolting will undoubtedly have an idea of who to send to Terra. And ... what of your hunt for the man you spoke of?"

"My men are close to finding him."

"Good. Keep me informed - and nice work," finished the Lord Admiral. Pax turned and strode off the bridge without another word. Ajall tapped away at his command throne's communication's console; he had units and assets to move.

* * *

><p><strong>New Istanbul<strong>

Corporal Lieu looked left and right, making sure that no one was tailing him. He ducked below several scaffolds that had been set up to repair the damage that the recent attack had done and sidled along a new wall-emplacement that the Imperials had brought with them. They'd been pretty helpful, even through the language barrier, in rebuilding the colony. A lot of newer construction materials, mainly bulwarks and enhanced communication systems, had been installed and integrated into the colony's existing infrastructure. Since he'd been promoted in the aftermath of Corporal - now Service Chief - Daniel Fernham's injury and subsequent (and quite miraculous) recovery, he'd had to liaise with the Imperial troops on many things.

He'd also had ample opportunity to take video and audio of his interactions, as well as summaries of everything he'd seen and heard, on his omnitool.

Lieu stopped at an intersection to check his surroundings. It was quite a cold, starry night, remnants of the last snowfall covering the ground where blades of green-yellow grass peeked through. The planet's three moons shined with varied brightness in the sky, positioned close to one another. They cast a predominantly bluish haze onto everything on the ground. The light was reflected brightly by the patches of snow visible here and there. Sounds of wildlife echoed throughout the night - odd chirps and growls filled the night. Lieu knew better than to jump at every sound he heard, but what with the way the Legionnaires and Imperial Specialists moved around, it might be appropriate to be overly cautious.

The corporal trotted over to a large tree that branched out over several buildings under its canopy. It was a fairly atypical woody perennial, representative of the dominating species of flora in the local area. To any regular observer, it would appear as if it was a rather dull-looking tree. Upon further observation and looking in from the right spot, one would realize that there was an odd stylized 'c' inset on a patch of oddly smooth bark. Lieu tapped at the _c_ and a control panel unfolded itself from the side of the tree. A timed countdown began on the red-hued display screen accompanying the panel, ticking down rapidly in a code language. Corporal Lieu quickly pressed a series of buttons on the panel, halting the countdown. A black microphone popped out from a previously covered hole, and the corporal leaned down and spoke a few choice words into it. Finally, the display screen flashed green. Lieu initiated a wireless connection from his omnitool to the panel. After a few seconds, the data he had stored was sent. A return data package uploaded itself into his omnitool, and as soon as he cut off the connection, the panel along with its accompanying parts flashed bright orange. Lieu watched it disintegrate, consumed in a short-lived flare of bright light and heat.

The corporal tapped at his omnitool and viewed the returned file as he started making his way back to the main barracks. It read - _standby for orders. Contact to be initiated soon_.


	27. Chapter 27

**author's note:** sorry 'bout the delay.

**edit 1:** fixed some continuity issues. FTL is not as fast as one day, made the stranded ship location closer to the shadow sea ... new location is in nimbus cluster. not that it really matters, but was something that I just came across.

**Horizon**

"Uploading ... now," said Zaeed as he tapped away at the holographic console. "You are aware, EDI, that it's basically a given that Shepard's on that flying rock right now?"

"Yes, I am aware. None of my calculations indicate that the Collector Cruiser will be destroyed by the GARDIAN batteries."

"Just saying," muttered Zaeed. "If that ship gets blown to hell, he'll be -"

"That is a statistical impossibility."

" ... It's done," he finished. The remaining Marines, Zaeed, and Grunt all looked up as the air hummed with newly activated power. GARDIAN batteries aimed and fired at the Cruiser, which began to move upwards at an ever increasing speed. Its hull took damage as it rose swiftly into the atmosphere, evidenced by large chunks of the ship simply falling off in response to the lasers. The turrets continued firing for several more seconds until the Cruiser vanished into the cloud cover.

Massani raised a finger to his ear and tapped the radio on. "Normandy - do you see the Cruiser?"

After several moments, Joker responded to the inquiry. "Yeah - it just showed up on sensor scans ... and ... ah, there it goes into FTL. Glad it didn't look at us."

"Alright. Dispatch a message to the Alliance and let them know about the survivors we're leaving here." Zaeed paused for a moment. "And send the Kodiak to pick us up."

"What happens now?" asked Lieutenant Durand as she strode over to Zaeed. The Mercenary looked at the Marine officer, shrugging.

"We've contacted the Alliance. They'll send some relief efforts to Horizon in a few days, but we'll be long gone by then," he replied. An uncomfortable silence followed, broken by Kaidan as he too wandered over.

"Shepard's up there, then?"

Zaeed nodded. Kaidan looked torn for a moment – it was clear he wished that he'd at least had the chance to talk to his former commander, to ask him questions that had been nagging at him ever since rumors that Shepard had resurfaced emerged.

The mercenary turned around to find the mysterious black-armored figure called Stalker standing right behind him. Zaeed started to lift a hand to motion the man away, but was cut off by a one-word question.

"Shepard?" came a mechanically filtered voice from the black helmet.

He stopped in mid-wave. "What about Shepard?"

"We require an audience with him," the figure replied. Behind Zaeed, Kaidan and Durand conferred with each other, assessing the current situation and what steps they'd be taking next.

"Well, he's gone. On that ship that just bugged the hell out of here. So you can't talk to him. Now get out of my way."

"Standby." Stalker replied, not moving an inch. Zaeed sighed – he wasn't sure what this man wanted with their now captured leader, but it could be worth finding out. Stalker turned as the large black gunship that had provided cover fire for the Marines came to a hovering standstill above the ad-hoc group of Marines. A ramp lowered from the underbelly of the vessel and a massive armored figure stepped out from the craft's innards. The gunship descended until its landing struts stamped down on to the earthy soil of Horizon. Up close, it seemed less able to be described as a simple _gunship_. It was far larger than any ground attack craft Zaeed had ever seen. Indeed, it seemed to be close to a tenth the size of the Normandy.

Stalker stood aside to let the massive being approach the group. Zaeed reckoned that it was close to two and a half, perhaps three, meters tall. It was easily twice as wide as Grunt, which was quite an accomplishment in and of itself – Krogans weren't known for being slim, and Grunt was genetically engineered to be a perfect specimen representative of his species. The armor it wore seemed to be blacker than the depths of space itself; light seemed to become enthralled in its vicinity and seemed to get pulled in. The unsettling result was a dark and blurry hue that surrounded the figure, making it difficult to focus on it.

"Who're you?" asked Zaeed unceremoniously.

"I seek the soldier known as Shepard," it rumbled. Whatever voice modulator was built into the helmet seemed to increase the bass of the figure's voice. Zaeed's flesh vibrated slightly, being so close to it.

"He's on that bloody ship that just shot off to who knows where. Like I said to this mook here," Zaeed indicated to Stalker. "I don't think you'll be meeting him any time soon." And if the Normandy would have any chance of catching up to or intercepting the cruiser, they would need as much time as possible. Neither he nor Grunt could afford to tally about uselessly while Shepard remained a prisoner.

"Then I will need to speak to whoever he was working with," it rumbled matter-of-factly. Zaeed thought on it for a moment – he had no idea who or what these people worked for. For all he knew, they were with the Alliance, and they were difficult to deal with at best. On the other hand, if they _weren't_ Alliance, then perhaps they had resources or manpower that could aid the Normandy in the search for Shepard.

Shit, now wouldn't _that_ be great.

Massani made his decision. He opened a link to the Normandy.

"Get Lawson down here. Something's come up."

* * *

><p>Turman watched the small landing craft come down and make a clean landing with interest. The engines of the small shuttle pulsed in a manner he hadn't heard of. He doubted it utilized any antigravity drives or propulsion units he'd ever seen.<p>

To his left stood Stalker, ominous as ever. To his right was the reporter, Gale Newman. When he'd introduced himself to her (out of necessity – she'd unfortunately been awake when he had returned from scouting the immediate area when the Storm Eagle was in the woods), he could tell she had many questions to ask. Turman was relatively glad she hadn't gotten a chance to ask any of them, because he suspected they would be a great many.

She was with them to document their journey. Therefore, she had to be present at important moments, and this certainly was one such moment.

A lithe, black haired woman strode out of the small shuttle, just as the shuttle had finished landing. Next to her was a tall xenos breed Turman had been briefed about before he had embarked on his journey – they were named _Turians_. It wore blue armor with an exaggeratedly open collar. The Specialist had no doubt that he could crack it open with but a punch, but he wouldn't even need to do that to kill it. Leaving your neck painfully exposed was a dreadfully stupid idea.

"I am Operative Lawson," announced the woman. She nodded to the alien next to her. "Archangel. You wanted to arrange a meeting with Commander Shepard. Is that right?"

Turman nodded. His HUD display outlined both of them in orange, threat vectors and targeting regions popping up quickly. He blinked them away. "Yes. I wished to question him regarding the threat of the beings known as the Reapers. Information on them is scarce with the authorities." Turman paused for a moment. "However, this Shepard would seem to be incarcerated for the moment, lost to me on the vessel that just left. What do you know about the reapers?"

The woman looked at him grimly. "Enough to know that they've got the upper hand in this fight with the Commander in their hands."

Turman mulled over the explanation that Lawson had given him. These Reapers were not physically present in the galaxy, but their proxies were. The Collectors, the xenos breed the Alpha Legionnaires had fought on New Istanbul, were acting in their stead and according to their whims.

Apparently, Shepard was an extraordinary human being. He had exceptional willpower. He was charismatic. He was driven. He was, from all that Turman understood, the perfect soldier. What was most interesting was his ability to withstand being shown visions from beacons left behind by a previous civilization; a previous race that aimed to forewarn those who would come after them about the Reaper threat. Anyone else who had tried either could not get them to work, or was driven insane by them. But not the Commander.

Without further research on Shepard's mind, it would be impossible to determine what gave him this ability. But it was significant enough to warrant the enemy first wanting to steal his dead body several years ago, and again now.

"How will you get him back?" he asked Lawson, matter of factly. She ran a gloved hand through her hair, blowing out air from her nose in a sigh. Turman had seen that expression she had on her face many times before. It spoke of shock, frustration, but above all – the knowledge that you knew you couldn't do anything to stop fate.

"Everything was contingent on not letting the Collectors end up with him. I've no doubt I could stop the Collectors with my team now, but now that they have him, I'm not sure what to do …" she trailed off, before apparently wondering why she was talking like so to a massive, blue-black armored stranger, a reporter who was completely lost as to why she was even present, and a seemingly mute man clad in black and hefting the largest sniper rifle she'd ever seen. Turman suppressed a derisive snort. He had no time for basket cases.

"Then _we_ will get him back. Because _we_ need him, correct?" the Alpha Legionnaire rumbled. She looked at him sharply.

"What do you want with him? I don't even know who, or _what_ you are. I'm sitting here, wasting time because Zaeed thought that there was something important down here, and clearly there isn't. While I appreciate the help you gave to my people down here, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this chat short."

"I, and the people I represent, could offer assistance towards retrieving the Commander. We would require, of course, full disclosure of any and all intelligence pertaining to the Collectors," Turman said.

She stared at him long and hard, trying to discern what he truly meant. His helmet was, unfortunately for her, rather emotionless. "This is a waste of time …" she grumbled. Despite her reservations, she spoke several quick words into a radio receiver, her hand to her ear. "It's not up to me to decide whatever _help_ you want to offer is welcome. Follow my shuttle up. You'll receive docking instructions once we're ready to receive you."

Turman nodded. "Good."

* * *

><p>The last day and a half had passed rather uneventfully for Specialist Turman. He reflected on it as he stared out at the elongated ship in front of the Storm Eagle. They had spent the day helping the Alliance Marines in whatever way they could, largely via medical supplies. One 'good' aspect of that was that the Marines were either dead, or hardly wounded; as a result, the Storm Eagle's medical supplies had not been exhausted treating the surviving Marines. Finally, then, the docking instructions had been radioed down by the woman, Lawson, and they had left the surface of the planet.<p>

The Alpha Legionnaire blinked, and imperceptibly shook himself out of the reverie. The Storm Eagle's viewport offered a full view of the vessel they intended to dock with; its primary housing took the form of an oblong cylinder, with a flattened snout and two flanking wings placed close to the rear of the fuselage. Nearly ten times the size of the Storm Eagle, it was an impressive vessel in its own right. Next to him, the Navigator and the Chronicler (as he was coming around to thinking about Newman) observed the ship as well. DeFrant, he knew, had spent most of her void-time in ships far more vast and grand. The Chronicler, on the other hand, seemed to ooze a feeling of awe; before it became too suffocating, the Legionnaire turned to her.

"You have seen this ship before?" She started with a jump, surprised at being addressed to directly.

"Ah, no, actually. I was, um, a defense correspondent for the ANN a few years back, and there were rumors of new stealth ships in some of the frontier flotillas. I think we're looking at one."

"Stealth?" Turman inquired.

"I don't know any of the details," Newman explained. "A few shots of ships that looked like this were associated with Shepard back when the Eden Prime Incident was all the talk on the networks. I think this one's bigger, but it's more or less the same design."

"Good," nodded Turman. She hadn't been of much use, but at least he had a general idea of what its capabilities were. Stealth ships, especially ones designed to be as such and not modified, were never heavily armed. One trick ponies, to borrow the old adage. Sometimes two.

A red light blinked on the console in front of him, illuminating the darkened cockpit. Turman flicked the vox switch to its _on_ position. With a blink, his helmet vox patched into the ships' systems.

"Docking instructions?" he said into his helmet. A male voice replied, sounding weary.

"There's a circular airlock towards the port of the ship. It's currently ringed with blinking blue lights."

"I see it." Turman shut the link off. With subtle movements, he fired the Storm Eagle's thrusters and maneuvered the craft so that the embarkation ramp was pointing at the circular airlock. At the push of a button, armor plates retracted from the Storm Eagle and an airtight envelope advanced until it was secured against the hull of the other craft. There was a protracted hiss as the air pressures equalized to provide a clean atmosphere linking the two vessels.

"Chronicler. With me," the Legionnaire rumbled. Newman looked confused at being referred to as such for a moment, but then started fumbling with her harness to follow Turman. The Legionnaire strode into the cargo hold and depressed a small red stud on the wall next to the lifted ramp. A subsection of the ramp, a rectangular area set in the middle of the ramp itself, rose up to provide an exit from the Storm Eagle, and a view of the entrance to the other spacecraft.

He took one look and sighed. From the looks of it, the entrances to this ship would be too damn small for him.

**The Normandy**

Jacob Taylor waited at the airlock, aware that the entire bridge was deathly quiet. Ever since Zaeed had radioed the news up, a dull pallor had settled over the crew. Even Joker didn't have anything smart to say, and he was usually able to annoy Jacob with his quips even in dire situations.

No, it certainly wasn't the time for jokes. One look at the stone-hard quality of Zaeed's face was enough to tell him that.

The airlock hissed and spun before opening. Through the smoke, and the gloom beyond it, stepped two figures. One was massively proportioned, easily twice the size of Grunt. The other was a normal sized woman, clad in cream robes that obscured her form.

"You're the reps of the forces that helped save Horizon?" Jacob asked briskly. There was no time to waste. If these people could help, then that could potentially take a lot of the burden off the Normandy's crew. Especially now that they had lost Shepard.

The giant nodded its helmeted head. Now that he had trudged over to stand in front of Jacob, he was made even more aware of the height and size difference. Jacob considered himself to be a fairly large man, at nearly 6 feet 4 inches, but this giant towered even over him at what he estimated to be seven and a half feet tall, and was nearly three times as wide as Jacob.

"Follow me." Jacob turned around, striding through the door to the armory, then heading into the hallway that led to the quantum communication room. Scrapes and groans from the Normandy's door frames followed him; that didn't surprise him. The giant was huge, it was bound to happen.

Miranda was already there in the comms room, talking to the Illusive Man and giving him a status update in person. Things like this, the big fish always wanted to know in person. When the shit went flying, they had to feel some of it hit their faces, too.

Jacob never understood that.

A hiss, barely audible, made Jacob look back at the giant, who had followed him. Despite himself, Jacob found that he was surprised to see a recognizable face underneath the helmet. The man in the armor was undeniably human, from what he could see. He had close cropped brown hair, and his face spoke of many wars and hardships through scars. He could've been statuesque for all the emotion he showed.

Miranda looked back from the Illusive Man, and stepped out from the viewing area. She beckoned the giant forward silently. He obliged, taking one massive step forwards, and into the viewing area.

This was going to be interesting. Hell, whenever the boss man was involved directly, things got interesting.

Turman watched the little figure of the man on the chair observe him. He did the same in turn; the man had neatly combed hair, an odd-looking suit, and some sort of smoking stick in his mouth. Turman knew that he, with his massively armored form, probably presented a more intriguing look in comparison to the man's nonchalant one.

"I understand that you were of some assistance in keeping the Collectors from wiping Horizon clean of all humans," the man said. Not really a question, or voiced as such, but he was undoubtedly expecting a response.

"My … _friends_ and I did help to rid the colony of malignant xenos life forms. That was not my primary mission, however."

"Really? What is, or was?" The man stuck the stick in his mouth again. Its end glowed orange.

"To meet with a certain Commander Shepard."

"Really?" the man repeated. "And how did you know he was here, with my team?"

Inwardly, Turman smiled. An interrogation. You did not interrogate an Astartes. "Some secrets should remain such. I suspect you, of all people, would know that."

"Perhaps." The man was silent for a short while, probably pondering what question to probe with next. "My proxy there, Operative Lawson, informs me that you wish to make your services available to our mission."

Not quite, but if it made him happy to believe that he was in control, then more power to him. Figuratively. "Something like that."

"Good. I've just received intelligence that these _xenos_ that attacked Horizon may be vulnerable. One of their ships was attacked by a patrol, and is now stranded. I want you to take three members of my team on your vessel and scout it out before any of the authorities get there."

"Very well."

"Whoever you choose will know where to go after you've completed that. You'll rendezvous with the Normandy at a location that they will direct you to."

"One last thing," replied Turman. The one thing the man had subtly neglected to mention. "What do I call you?"

"You can call me the Illusive Man."

* * *

><p>Turman surveyed the three members of the Illusive Man's team. He had no doubt they were the best at what they did. Operative Lawson was staying on the Normandy, but she had picked out a team to come with Turman to the stranded xenos ship. One was the tall, bony-ridged alien named Archangel. The other was the large black man called Jacob. The third, and final, member of this group was the brutish, slug-like creature they called Grunt.<p>

The Legionnaire didn't mind this – in his time with the Legion's main body, they had intermingled with enough alien species on covert operations for him to become used to them.

Turman looked over at the group, deep in discussion with Lawson at their end of the air lock, from within the shadowy confines of the Storm Eagle. They spoke in low voices, but he could hear them as if they were standing next to him, talking animatedly.

"Garrus, you're in charge. Keep an eye on these … _others_ we're joining. I don't trust them." Lawson paused, musing what to say next. Turman allowed himself a grin. He would have assumed that would be the case even without hearing that.

"None of my networks have come up with anything regarding who they are, or who they represent. We need you to figure that out."

"I've never seen armor like that," added Jacob.

"Who cares what armor he wears," grumbled Grunt. "We get to fight Collectors again."

"That's all you ever care about, isn't it? Fighting? Da-mn."

"Shut up, both of you." Archangel – or Garrus, but Turman personally preferred the former – put a stop to their bickering. "We'll do whatever's necessary to get Shepard back. _And _find out who these guys are. Don't worry, Miranda."

"Then head out." Lawson handed a data slate to Archangel. "The location is here. Just beyond the Kallini System. Good luck."

The three turned around and crossed the airlock, dragging several cases of what the Legionnaire could only assume were food and munitions. Turman surveyed the group; they seemed capable enough, but he would find out once the fighting started whether that was a correct assessment.

"Everything in order?" he queried to Archangel. The alien nodded. "Then let us depart."


	28. Chapter 28

**Author's note**: I know that typically, collector ship mission triggered 4-5 missions _after_ Horizon. I assume the presence of more than one Collector ship as I have before to accommodate this a bit.

**The Warp**

Navigator DeFrant shifted in her harness to view the tides of the Warp. Her cranial enclosure followed her around, draping wires across her form.

Traveling the Warp without the Astronomican was difficult, indeed. The closest analogy she could muster up when questioned about it was that it was like guiding an antiquated ocean-faring vessel at dusk. Of course, guiding a ship through the Warp was far more complicated; extra dimensions, whirlpools and eddies in all directions, and _things_ that followed your ship.

Yes, the Warp was far calmer here, in this sidereal universe. The things that followed, though, they knew now. As soon as the 25th had blasted through the thin veil that had separated realities, _they knew_.

She hadn't been able to feel them before, but she could now. Like seeing fish just under the surface of the water. Or so she'd heard the saying; she'd never actually seen any fish. Ligaea imagined that the fish she was thinking about weren't small and docile. More like … leviathans. Shadows. Nightmares. Things that shouldn't exist, except in the blissful unawareness of the subconscious mind when one was sleeping.

They were pooling together. Even now, as the Storm Eagle sailed towards its destination, carried along by the myriad spatial currents of the Warp, she could feel them. An old force of habit, remnants from the culture Ligaea had left behind on Terra, had her making protective signs over herself. She made sure to avert her Third Eye, keeping it focused on the destination.

"Navigator? How long?" asked the Legionnaire, his voice losing none of its timbre quality, even over the private comm channel.

"Five minutes. Give or take," she replied.

"Good."

Ligaea opened her eyes and checked the chronometer built into her harness. Seven hours and twenty-three minutes, realspace time. Give or take. It was a good rule of thumb to never trust chrons in the Warp. At least, never to trust them entirely.

The other three that had arrived had mostly kept to themselves, preferring to rest on cots they'd brought along in the cargo hold. Their leader, the bony alien, had exchanged several quick words with Turman during the journey, but other than that it had been a very uneventful journey. She thought she'd seen, out of the corner of her normal eyes, them snooping around; but what with her throne oriented so that it was facing the cockpit, and being securely fastened to ground with adamantium bolts, she couldn't have been sure. Turman had spent the entirety of the journey in the cockpit and in the weapons hallway, judging by the sounds of rummaging she'd heard. Stalker and the reporter, Gale, had talked for a good length of time, though about what, Ligaea couldn't imagine: largely because she'd never had any reason to give any real thought to members of the shadowy Assassin offices as individuals. She had a feeling that Stalker had been ordered to do so by Turman.

There was an air of resentment that radiated outwards from Stalker, mixed with flashes of shame and regret. Worst of all was the guilt, though. Ligaea wasn't an empathy, really, but her inborn affinity for the Warp allowed her to notice auras of different individuals, if their feelings were strong enough.

Returning to the task at hand, she consciously fed less and less power to the Storm Eagle's miniaturized Warp Drive, until the ship's momentum started to slow down.

"Exiting Warpspace …" she keyed into the comms. A click returned; Turma's acknowledgement.

DeFrant nudged the craft forwards a bit with a spurt of energy, to generate some momentum going forward, then shut off the Warp Drive. With a lurch, the Storm Eagle exited the Warp, sliding through space towards their goal.

* * *

><p>The Storm Eagle dropped out of the Warp silently, a small tear in reality the only hint that any ship had even entered the area. As soon as it came out, the gunship ran silent. Heat dispersion covers extended out to hide the engine exhaust ports, and all lights were turned off. Against the backdrop of the void, only the most advanced sensory devices could pick up this insignificant speck in the massive volume of local space.<p>

The Storm Eagle banked and floated carefully to a boarding position above the stricken Collector Cruiser. Cold, automated weapon mounts swayed back and forth on the wingtips of the gunship, seeking out targets to destroy. None came. The alien ship was truly deserted, by all outward appearances.

The gunship lowered itself until it was several meters above rocky hull of the Cruiser. A shaped melta charge dropped out from a compartment on the bottom of the Storm Eagle and latched itself on to the Cruiser's hull. A soundless explosion followed, accentuated with a bright flash of light. Debris crumbled away from the ship; the job was finished. A large hole, nearly three meters in diameter, gave pict sensors on the underside of the Storm Eagle a good view of the inside of the ship. Through the venting atmosphere inside the ship, the sensors saw a molten exterior, still glowing red from the melta charge, and beyond that deck framework. The Storm Eagle maneuvered itself so that the loading ramp at the rear faced the gaping hole and a malleable airlock envelope extended from the ramp, securing itself with powerful adhesives to the hull of the Cruiser.

They were in.

* * *

><p>The ramp door hissed as the pressure between the two vessels equalized. A small readout mounted on the wall to the left of the ramp blinked with runic red symbols.<p>

"Atmosphere is not breathable. Temperature within tolerable limits. Secure helmets," announced Turman upon consulting with the readout. The rest of the five-man team complied, slipping various hoods and breather masks over their faces. A camera drone hovered above them, recording everything. Gale Newman sat in the cargo hold behind the team, watching and adjusting the video feed on her personal omni-tool. She gave a thumbs up sign to the Legionnaire, who nodded in affirmation.

The airlock door, rectangular and inset within the larger embarkation ramp, slid open and moved outwards, providing an entrance to the Collector vessel. As soon as the five left the confines of the Storm Eagle, the ramp slid shut. Finally, they entered the Collector vessel in earnest.

"Release airlock cradle and remain at maximum operational distance. Contact will be initiated when the mission is complete," Turman radioed back to the gunship, before turning back to view the Collector ship.

As the pict sensors had indicated, the honeycomb structure of the deck had been fused together by the intense heat released by the melta charge. Garrus, Taylor, and Grunt all fanned out in loose formation, sweeping their guns left and right. Behind them came the black clad figure known as Stalker and the midnight armored form of Turman. Neither made any motion with their weapons – their helmets having already scanned and eliminated any semblance of threats, presumably. Turman consulted his wrist-mounted auspex, and pointed upwards and to the right.

"Power signs spike in this direction. Probably powered consoles, perhaps the bridge of this vessel itself," The large man rumbled. Vakarian nodded and beckoned his two subordinates forward. Garrus knew the value of having forward scouting done; his life had depended on it several times already, in his service with C-Sec and during his vigilante run against the pirate lords of Omega. He glanced backwards at Turman, and started in surprise. Stalker had vanished.

"Where'd he go?" asked Garrus.

"Scouting."

Garrus nodded and continued forward. The remaining four team members kept moving ahead, eventually reaching an intersection of blocky arched tunnels with no incident. Everyone but Turman took up positions covering each of the tunnel entrances. Turman cocked his head for a moment, apparently listening to an incoming transmission. He beckoned to the dark passageway that loomed straight ahead.

"Stalker's found something. Send one of your men there along with the camera drone through this way and check it out."

Vakarian didn't like that. For all he knew, a silent alarm had already gone out when they'd breached the hull, and the Collectors of this vessel were already mobilizing in force to meet the intruders on their ship. "Is dividing our team a wise idea?"

"Mission objectives are to investigate this ship. And if there are indeed Collectors wishing to repel us from their ship, I'm not picking them up," Turman replied pointedly.

Garrus motioned Taylor forward, and the camera drone zoomed off after him. The three team members didn't waste time watching Taylor fade away into the gloomy interiors of the ship, towards whatever it was that Stalker had found. They forged on ahead in the direction Turman indicated.

The team passed through several archways. Garrus was perturbed by the honeycomb structure of the interiors. He had seen a lot of structures in his time, on Palaven, the Citadel, and later on his adventures with Shepard two years ago to stop the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius. But these Collectors were more like … bugs. Controlled, like puppets, from what Garrus had seen from the mission vids that Zaeed had returned with on Horizon. No individual initiative. It was creepy, and rightfully so: the last bug-like creatures that been unleashed on the galaxy had caused unimaginable widespread destruction, and had forced interventive measures that no one wanted to ever revisit.

They passed through into a large chamber, making Garrus looked up as the ceiling abruptly fell away as it arched off into the far distance, culminating in . Tubed walls rose up to provide a pathway for the team. They followed the route provided to them towards where a green-lit control panel sat. The Turian zoomed in with his helmet feed, focusing on the bulbous structures hanging from the ceiling and the walls. It took him several moments to figure out what they were. An odd crawling feeling sent shivers up his spine as he realized what was stored the pods.

"Those pods … are those …" breathed Garrus.

"They store humans, yes," Turman answered. The large man didn't seem the slightest bit disturbed; the timbre quality of his voice hadn't changed at all.

The Krogan panned his face theatrically as he pointed it upwards, his small, piggy eyes blinking rapidly as he tried to count all the pods. "How many are there?"

"Possibly millions. They have been abducting various species for a long time now. The majority of the pods seem to contain humans, although I see several that contain other races. A group of Turians, ahead, two hundred meters." Turman jabbed a gauntleted finger above them. Garrus focused on that location, and realized that Turman was right; there _were_ several Turians stored in pods, just like the humans.

"They wouldn't dare take Krograns!" exclaimed Grunt, pride evident in his voice. Turman shook his head and pointed above again.

"Two of your race, there."

Grunt grumbled and fell silent.

Jacob's voice broke through their examinations of the pods as it crackled through the general radio channel. "You all won't believe this. You know what Stalker found? _Piles of human bodies._ They look like … like they've been burned to bits. There's like, nothing left. No skin or flesh … just bones." The ex-Alliance soldier's voice was distorted, but they all could tell that he was disgusted. Garrus wasn't even human, and _he_ was disgusted by what Jacob had just reported. It'd probably be worse in person.

"Acknowledged. Continue along the corridor, see if you can find anything else of interest," responded Turman, clicking the link off. He motioned to the control panels ahead, and Garrus and Grunt swept ahead across the hexagonal tiles to the control panels. Garrus activated his omni-tool and scanned the panels, letting the programs EDI had written shortly before they had left the Normandy to scan the Collector Cruisers' systems. A small indicator light popped up on the omni-tool display, and numbers indicating a wireless file transfer completion percentage started counting up from zero. A progress bar even appeared to aid in understanding the progress.

"Gathering information. Looks like a couple of minutes until it's done."

Suddenly, the platform they were on juddered as the tubes surrounding them awakened from their dormant state, fluid running through them at an increasingly fast pace. Garrus lost his balance, falling to the ground. Grunt fared slightly better as he balanced himself against the green panel. Turman just flexed his knees slightly.

The tubed walls dropped away as they rose up into the air and flew to an empty spot in between several hexagonal platforms. Just as he was getting back to his feet, Vakarian was tossed back down as the platform abruptly stopped moving. He stood up quickly, pulling his M-97 off his back and scanned the area around them for signs of enemy activity. He groaned as he saw a hexagonal platform soaring through the air at them. Turman vocalized his dismay.

"It looks like we're out of time."

* * *

><p>Jacob Taylor peeked around the corner into a room that held a large holographic display, sweeping his Avenger around and making sure no live Collectors were hiding in any of the corners waiting to ambush him. Stalker had radioed him briefly and told him that the room was clear, and that he was moving on to scout ahead, but Jacob didn't trust that report. Partly because he had no idea who Stalker was and how much he <em>could<em> be trusted, but also because this was the Collectors' ship. They knew each and every nook and cranny there was to know. If they wanted to lay an ambush, it didn't matter how many scans you ran, you'd always get caught looking the other way.

Having satisfactorily swept the entire room, Jacob advanced into the room. There were a series of pods arranged in a semi-circular fashion, framed by odd-looking machinery that hung down from the ceiling. He peered into several pods and raised his eyebrows. The Collectors in them were quite clearly dead. Some of them even looked cut up. The entire place looked like … like a lab. It seemed reasonable to Jacob that the Collectors would have some sort of medical facility to take care of their wounded. Perhaps this was one such place – or was it something darker? Were they experimenting on their own species?

That huge guy, Turman, had wanted him to take note of any interesting things, so he ran a quick bioscan of one of the Collectors. Any advantage, even some rudimentary knowledge of the Collectors biology, was an advantage he was not willing to let go of. His omni-tool beeped as it completed its analysis and stored it for later retrieval. He moved on to a blue control panel that stood next to a pod. Jacob allowed his omni-tool to interface and establish a rudimentary connection with it. Once again, his omni-tool beeped after a short while, indicating that it had completed any file transfer or analysis that had been available to it.

While he scanned all these items, the camera drone hovered over him, recording all of his actions and taking nice shots of the Collector bodies.

Suddenly, Taylor heard shots ring out from the exit corridor leading away from the room, opposite from the one he'd come from. Quickly, he crossed the room and pressed himself against one edge of what passed for the archway frame into the exit. The corridor was four, maybe five, meters wide and a couple more than that tall. After a sweep of the area, he realized that the shots must have come from a fair distance away, since he saw nothing but dark, rocky walls and even darker shadows flickering across them. He tapped at his ear-mounted radio bead.

"Stalker? You there?"

More shots sounded out, echoing down the corridor. Now, he could hear a faint chattering, as if … beetles were flying around. Jacob tried the radio again.

"Stalker?"

This time, a replay came back tersely.

"Falling back to your position. Estimated thirty hostiles in pursuit."

Jacob swore to himself, but sent an acknowledgement. "I'll cover your approach."

It didn't take long for Stalker to appear. It was difficult to make him out at first; his black form flitting from shadow to shadow, always keeping his back covered with a scoped pistol of unknown manufacture.

Then the Collectors started showing up.

Lithe brown figures with insectoid wings (no doubt the chattering Jacob had heard earlier) came into view around the bend, twenty or so meters up the hallway. Evidently, they weren't able to see Stalker very well (not for lack of trying, Jacob thought amusedly), because their fire was rather chaotic. It hit the walls and ceilings more often than landing in any close proximity to the mysterious man clad in black. But when he returned fire, it was ruthlessly accurate. The pistol Stalker had was presumably equipped with a flash suppressor and silencer, because Jacob could neither see nor hear the pistol fire. All he saw was Collectors dropping down to the ground. Whether they were flying in the air or moving up to cover their comrades' approaches was irrelevant; drone after drone was sent backwards, small holes appearing in their heads with vital fluids splashing out and away from their bodies.

Encouraged, Jacob began shooting at the Collectors with his Avenger. Quick, disciplined bursts saw blue shots slamming home into their targets. The drones' advance faltered at the prospect of having to face two excellent marksmen, and all the Collectors began to halt to try consolidating their tenuous position. Stalker took the opportunity afforded him by the relative absence of gunfire to sprint the remaining distance into the lab room Jacob occupied.

"Nearly out of ammunition," Stalker informed Tayler tersely. His voice came out robotic through his helmet's filters. Jacob nodded, loosened off another volley of shots, and jabbed a thumb back behind him.

"Guess we should call it in, huh?"

"Already done. Turman reports enemy contacts as well," Stalker replied. Taylor raised his eyebrows in surprise, then frowned in suspicion. He mashed the trigger down on his Avenger, blasting a drone bold enough to try and take up a position closer to Jacob and Stalker's position. It seemed almost as if the Collectors had lured them in, and were now trying to annihilate them … had the Illusive Man known? And if he did, then _how_ had he known where the Collector Cruiser had been stranded? Yet another complaint to "lodge" with Miranda about his employer …

"How are they doing?" asked Taylor. Stalker shrugged, and swung around the doorway, neatly dishing out several headshots within the span of a few seconds before taking cover again.

"Recommend withdrawal to extraction point immediately."

Taylor looked at the man, then back out at the Collectors. Bodies were strewn everywhere, but the Collectors seemed to have replaced their diminished numbers. Now a line of blue zombie-like husks were making their way down the hallway in a slow, ambling gait. Jacob knew that he didn't have nearly enough spare clips to take them all out, even if he was to get one kill per shot. Not if they kept reinforcing like this …

"_Shit_. We're about to get swamped. Alright, let's head out." He tapped at a dispenser on his belt and took out several smart-mines. While Stalker retreated back through the hallway to their rear, Jacob tossed the mines, spreading them out both in the corridor and near the entrance to the room. At least that would slow them down a bit – clogging a doorway with bodies was a rather efficient way to stop the husks, if not the Collectors themselves.

The two of them retreated in ordered fashion back through the doorway from where they'd come from, towards the gunship that had borne them into this vessel. An explosion boomed through the room and echoed out, reaching Jacob's ears. The first of the mines, no doubt.

Stalker stopped, and quickly grabbed Jacob, yanking him down. A thin yellow beam sliced through the location where Jacob's head had been, instead impacting against the top edge of his personal kinetic barrier. Jacob nodded thanks, but Stalker was already firing his pistol rapidly at the brown figures behind them. Jacob sprinted away, stopping only when he had put a good distance between himself and Stalker. Then he turned around, laying down a withering hail of suppressive fire towards the drones nearly on top of Stalker, allowing him to sprint back to Jacob's position.

Jacob hoped that at the rate he was expending ammo, he'd have enough for the retreat. He grimaced at the thought of what would happen to them if he didn't as he slammed home another thermal clip.

Might as well save a shot for himself at the end.

* * *

><p>Garrus ducked behind the edge of the central platform, letting it absorb the shots that were bound for him. Several shots ricocheted off the central control panel. Garrus ran a quick eye over it, finding no damage. He breathed a quick sigh of relief. That would be the ultimate irony; having a nearly complete file transfer, only to have the console blown up by a stray shot.<p>

He popped up out of cover and sighted a drone in the sights of his Mantis. A millisecond later, it flew backwards, its head no longer whole, one half shattered and falling away in pieces. He reloaded, barely noting the spent thermal clip ejecting and flying past his head. One more drone went down to his gunfire a second later. Another reload. A third drone Garrus saw in his sights was obliterated before he depress the Mantis' trigger, and he heard Grunt next to him chuckling at the stolen kill.

That was a nice kill count for the two of them. Three in just under twice as many seconds. But that didn't even compare to the havoc Turman was reaping.

The massive human wasn't even taking cover; he simply stood there, right behind Vakarian and Grunt, letting the incoming gunfire of the Collectors simply clatter away on his armor. In return, he was killing methodically – one shot, one kill. His weapon boomed a retort every time it fired, echoing out loudly over all the gunfire being unleashed. Several of the platforms that carried their enemies through the air towards them were simply littered with exploded bits of Collector bodies by the time they reached the team's location.

Vakarian really wanted that gun. It was huge, nearly on par with a rocket launcher rather than a gun, but he still wanted one. Ass would be kicked like never before if he ever got his hands on one.

He stared down the scope of his rifle once more, and groaned as he saw two platforms ominously full platforms approaching.

"Turman! Scions, three and eight o'clock!"

The big man nodded. He slammed home another clip and started firing at the approaching platforms. Collector drones exploded around the scions. To Garrus's eye, it seemed as if they were sacrificing themselves to Turman's fire to allow the scions time to close and engage. Garrus spotted yet another platform approaching, chock full of drones.

"Grunt! We've got more incoming, dead ahead! Focus fire on them!" ordered Garrus. Both of them switched their attentions to the incoming hostiles. He picked them off at a distance while they closed with the central platform. As they neared, Grunt opened fire with disciplined volleys from his shotgun, forcing many of the Collectors into cover to try and avoid the onslaught. The platforms finally finished crossed the gulf separating them from the central platform. The Turian slapped the sniper rifle onto his back and switched to a Vindicator assault rifle. He held it out over his head, firing blindly at the Collectors to get them to keep their heads down.

Out of nowhere, a voice that seemed to be in his head jarred him, shaking him down to his very core.

**+Your attempts to resist are futile. +**

Garrus shook his head to clear it. He popped back up to fire at the drones a little more accurately only to be flung backwards as a massive biotic attack slammed into his barriers, quickly overloading them. They shattered with a sound like breaking glass. The Turian staggered backwards, depressing the trigger and aiming in the vague direction of the attacker.

**+Desist. Now. +**

Vakarian laughed as he regained his balance, his shield already recharging. He could now clearly see the Collector that had attacked him. Its body was oddly molten, contrasting with its brethrens' brown bodies, and its eyes glowed strangely. There was an aura of dominance around it; it seemed far more potent than any regular drone. It _felt_ larger, too. It was hard to describe the feeling – an oppressive blanket of eons of despair shrouded the immediate vicinity around it. Garrus shivered involuntarily.

"Come on! Give me your best shot!" he goaded, all the while loosening off shots at the Collector. The shots simply impacted against its formidable barrier, leaving expanding purple circles just above its skin. Grunt couldn't render any assistance – from all the sounds of gunfire coming from the Krogan's direction, Garrus could infer with a reasonable degree of accuracy that Grunt was trying to keep the rest of the Collectors at bay. The Collector raised a fist wreathed in golden power and aimed it at Garrus before his shots broke through its barrier and forced it to take a step back. Vakarian kept slamming shots home, peppering its face and chest with disciplined bursts from his Vindicator. Finally, the Collector dropped dead, looking like an overused sponge.

By now the scions had clear lines of fire on the team. Before they had a chance to aim properly and open up with their shockwave cannons, Turman landed two perfectly placed grenades on the scions' respective platforms. The explosives blew a second later with a blast fit for a mass accelerator cannon. The scions were instantly obliterated, but the destruction didn't stop there. The platforms lost whatever form of propulsion that had guided them and dropped down like rocks, eventually impacting on the ground far below the team.

Vakarian and the Krogan both came out of cover and quickly dispatched the remaining Collectors. Bodies dropped left and right; soon there were no drones left alive. Garrus was almost disappointed at the lack of difficulty that the final few had presented; if he'd been the last turian standing in a firefight, he'd have taken as many of his killers with him as possible.

"What information did you gather from this vessel?" asked Turman, breaking the deadening silence that had descended on the battlefield. Garrus shrugged.

"What I retrieved is encrypted. I doubt I have enough processing power contained here to be able to crack it here and now," he replied. That was a bit of an embellishment. Garrus had run a small subroutine when the download had started to analyze the contents of the files he was retrieving from the control panel interface. The program had actually hung up for several seconds initially; _that_ was something unheard of. Programs hanging up? Laughable in this day and age.

"Very well. Fall back to the extraction point," directed Turman. He kept his helmeted head facing the distance, keeping wary of anymore inbound Collectors. "I see heavies, six hundred meters and closing. Move out!"


	29. Chapter 29

The extraction had gone by without any major incident.

Taylor and Stalker had linked up with Turman and his team, the camera drone bobbing up and down while trying to keep up with their fast pace, and several Collector drones had been hot on their tail. With the combined firepower of the united team, the drones were dispatched in quick order. It was as bloodless as Turman had expected; the schematics of the Collector Ship the Imperial Navy armsmen had gathered during the boarding action above New Istanbul provided to be invaluable. The entry point he'd chosen for the Storm Eagle was situated at an ideal distance away from the central control platforms. He'd needed a location that was both isolated enough from any significant Collector hibernation pods, yet far enough that the gunship wouldn't be counterboarded when the time came to extract the team. These Collector vessels seemed to be cut out from one template; there was very little ingenuity in their construction. They were all largely the same from the inside – a fact that had come in very handy.

With the large insectoid heavies closing in, they'd released the airlock cradle, left several high-yield melta charges attached to the hull, and blasted away from the vessel just as it had started to power back up. The explosions vaporized large sections of the decking material inside the Collector ship, disintegrating the majority of the aliens that had followed them. Those that survived were exposed to the hard vacuum of space from the tens of meters wide crater now inset on their hull. It became less and less pronounced as the Storm Eagle zoomed away from the kilometer long craft, but the trail of body parts and debris glinting in the light from distant stars was evidence enough of the wounds the ship had suffered.

Archangel had retrieved coordinates for a rendezvous point from the data slate Lawson had given him, and before the Collector Cruiser had any chance to acquire the gunship and blast it apart, they'd jumped to Warp and sped along to the mission debrief.

Upon reaching the rendezvous point, they'd had to wait for several hours before the Normandy, as Archangel's ship was called (Turman had the Chronicler inquire with Garrus, when she hadn't been talking Stalker, as to the name of their ship so he could catalog some researched intelligence with Pax at the earliest opportunity), had reached them. Soon thereafter, Garrus and his men were quickly transferred over to the Normandy, and the Storm Eagle had waited, docked to the larger ship.

Now, he was just passing time by replaying his memories in his head. Memories of old battles, operations, conversations. Of comrades lost, enemies vanquished, systems liberat –

"Lord?" asked the Navigator. Turman looked at her, annoyed. She couldn't see his face through the helmet, but she'd still feel his irritation.

"Specialist."

"Sorry – specialist. Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did," he said.

"One more, then?"

Turman didn't answer, and she took that as an affirmation of her request. "What happened to Stalker?"

So she could feel Stalker's emotions. Turman sighed into his helmet; it had been bound to happen sooner or later. The man had been through a lot in his life. Nearly too much. "I suggest you ask him."

"I think you know how the Navigator Houses feel about his kind," she replied.

"Yes." The Assassin Clades were the shadowy enforcer arm of the Imperium. Most citizens didn't know of their existence. A lot of Legionaries didn't, either. But the Navigators … they all knew. There were whispers of Assassins that were recruited solely for their anti-psyker abilities, to be used to curtail the rapid advancement of the Navigators through Imperial society. The three-eyed mutants held power, yes – but limited. Never too much. Always checked by mysterious illnesses, inopportune vehicular accidents, or some other deadly occurrence always pared the Navigator Houses and their leaders. "His personal history is … checkered."

"What do you mean?"

"Classified," he responded tersely. It was true enough. If they were back in their time, she could pull strings and find out. Here, the Navigators had no resources for that. Let her chew on what information he provided her.

"Very well," she replied. Apparently the Navigator was still equal parts afraid and in awe of him, as evidenced by the relative lack of dismay in her voice.

There had been far more at stake than uprooting a simple greenskin empire when the Twenty-Fifth had originally set out. As far as she, and the Army personnel were concerned, that wasn't their problem. It had never been.

A flashing light indicated an incoming message over the local radio frequencies. Turman flicked at a switch, syncing the Storm Eagle's systems with his helmet's.

"What?" he grunted. Lawson's voice answered.

"We're ready to receive you."

"Good. Maybe you can tell me why your team and I were sent into a trap." There was nothing but static on the line for a while. He'd caught her slightly off-guard; good. Finally, she responded.

"Like I said … we're ready to receive you," Lawson replied. That was about as clean a reply as she could've made, given the circumstances. Turman guessed that she wasn't relishing the prospect of an eight-foot tall armored killing machine in a rage. Fair enough; in her position, he wouldn't be too happy either, he supposed. "We're on our way, then."

* * *

><p><strong>The Normandy SR-2, communicationsbriefing room**

Garrus slammed his hand down the table, shaking his head. "He damn well knew where we were going, Miranda. There's no way he _didn't_."

The senior Cerberus operative sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "If the Illusive Man kept his knowledge of the situation from us, I'm sure it was for good reason."

"Did _you_ know too? Is that it?" the Turian pointed a sharp finger at her. "He held all the cards this time. Hell, he _still_ holds all the cards. He's screwing around with us, and we're his errand runners. Go over here, nearly get killed, and _for what?_"

"Garrus …"

"No. I only joined your little group because Shepard was running the show. Now that he's gone, why should I stay? So the Illusive Man can use me as an expendable pawn? I don't think so. I thought I was making a difference, not working for Cerberus."

The door to the room opened, and the giant Turman strode in, helmet tucked under one arm. His facial expression was unreadable as he came to a halt at one edge of the table, opposite Garrus. Miranda nodded to him. "I'm glad you were able to join us. We were just discussing what happened on the Collector Cruiser."

Turman gestured with an open gauntleted hand for them to speak first. Miranda took a deep breath; she had to mollify both this man and Garrus at the same time. She had an inkling that what she was about to reveal was certainly something that could potentially (and hopefully) achieve this.

"We've finished analyzing the data Garrus was able to recover from the central control panel of the vessel you boarded. There were several interesting tidbits, not the least of which concern the method of travel that the Collectors use to get from their base of operations to out here." She paused for dramatic effect. It seemed to work for Garrus, but she couldn't tell for the big man. "The Collectors use a specially designated IFF signal to traverse through the Omega-4 Relay. We're going to go after it, adapt it, and use it to get to the Collector base, or bases, and put them out of business permanently."

Garrus clicked his mandibles impatiently. "The Collectors that got Shepard … they took him to their base, then. Let's go get the IFF, then."

"We will. That's where you come in," she said, motioning to Turman. "The Illusive Man advised me to continue building my team." No reaction from Garrus; good. With Shepard gone, she needed to assert authority subtly wherever she could. "I need you head to the Tasale system, in the Crescent Nebula, and to Illium to retrieve the last two members of the team – if that's at all possible. I know you're not part of my crew. You're free to do what you wish. I hope that because our goals are the same, you'll help me with this."

"Is this another trap to walk in to, set up by your superior?" he asked. There was nothing snide or threatening about the question. He asked it in a flat tone of voice, implying nothing at all.

"I'm sorry about what happened on the last mission. I assure you that I did _not_ know what was going to happen there beforehand. If I had, I wouldn't have asked you to do that."

"Necessary risks and missions are acceptable, so long as you have the intelligence required to keep your wits about you, and your lives intact," he rumbled. "However, leading your own people into traps is reckless. Convey that to this _Illusive Man_ for me: the next time it happens, there will be no place _illusive_ enough to hide him from me."

Inwardly, Miranda shrugged. There were only a few people who knew where the main Cerberus facility was located. She doubted that this one giant could find the Illusive Man, who had remained hidden from galactic authorities for a little under two decades.

"Alright. We understand each other," she ventured.

"Yes."

"Like I was discussing with Garrus before you arrived; the Collectors used some sort of IFF tag to traverse the Omega-4 relay back to their base. We're working on a location from where we could potentially retrieve an identification tag, but until then, we need to continue and build our strike force, for when we eventually _do_ attack the Collector base of operations,"

"You want me to help you in this regard?" Turman asked.

"I'd like it if you were able to render any assistance at all towards this goal. There are two potential recruits on the planet Illium. It's … well, it's a very unique world. I'll send someone with you, and advance word that you'll be arriving there, to make everything go as smoothly as possible." She was thinking Garrus, again, but that could be a doubled edged sword. He wanted to get Shepard back as soon as possible, but he also needed time to simmer down. Seeing an old friend might be able to do the latter for him. And these two recruits were vital to the end goal: when they hit the Collector base, she wanted to hit it as hard as possible. Get in, deal with the Collectors, and get the hell out.

"This may be possible. I will assess the situation myself, and inform you of my decision."

"Thank you," Miranda said, inclining her head in thanks. With two teams working towards the same goal, they could focus on multiple objectives at once. Detouring to Illium would've required at least two to three days. On top of that, they had to take the Normandy around to scout for any intelligence regarding the collectors, _and_ refuel. Every day they could salvage via working with Turman was one day less that Shepard spent as a prisoner of the Collectors.

And one day closer to the inevitable suicide mission to get him back.


	30. Chapter 30

**Update, August 31st 2013:** I just finished with the quarter at UW and came back from vacation. I have several chapters written, but am finding time to put them up. In addition, I'm playing through ME1-3 again, to get back into gear, so it might take a while before the next chapter(s) (likely all of them up to the end at once) are uploaded.

Turman peered closely at the holovid Newman was showing him. The image was a tad small, but it still conveyed what it needed to across. The screen Gale held up showed a sparkling city with garden vistas on top of a host of buildings. The streets were clean, everyone was happy, and life was seemingly great.

"Illium is one of the chief trading hubs belonging to the Asari. It was primarily established so imports and exports wouldn't have to pay duties. A byproduct of all that, is the fact that no one cares for the drug trade, or illegal arms manufacturing and selling. It's all legal, as long as you don't broadcast it as legal, if you get what I mean," she said. "The only real problems that _I_ can see are just administrative ones; crime is pretty high, yeah, but I don't think anybody will be attacking you in force. If I were you, I'd just keep my head down and avoid as much trouble as possible; we cause too much, and we might get investigated by a Justicar, or something."

"Justicar?" he asked. It was an oddly archaic term.

"Yeah, they're … I dunno. The Alliance doesn't really have any analogue. Are you familiar with old Earth traditions at all?"

Turman nodded. "Some, yes."

"Well, I'd say they were a bit like knights. I suppose that's not entirely true; a lot of knights were swords for hire. These Justicars are like knights that roam the lands – uh, worlds – and dish out justice. From what I've heard, they're really strict about everything; they have a narrowly defined code that they always abide by. If they see wrongdoing, they'll stop it. They're honor-bound to stop it."

"This is one of the major trading hubs in the sector," Ligaea mused out loud. She was hunched over Gale's shoulder, the green and red lights flickering off her face so as to make it look ghoulish. "On any such world there has to be corruption. What's stopping the Justicars from launching a full-on crusade to punish all the financial wrong-doers?"

Newman shrugged. "Maybe they _are_ on a constant crusade against economical scammers. I'm not entirely sure. I don't think there are that many Justicars. Typically, just the threat of having one around is enough to put people in their places, at least for a little while."

Ah. Rather like the threat of having Astartes around, the Specialist thought. Except, of course, most people _stayed_ in their places for a long time afterwards after dealing with Space Marines. "So we can anticipate little trouble, then?" asked Turman.

"Yeah. I mean, you could always end up getting caught between a full-on skirmish between mercenary groups. That's happened before, on lesser worlds. The occurrence is rare enough to be considered pretty crazy, though."

"I've learned to always anticipate crazy," said DeFrant, a haunted look flashing across her face. After what she'd been through on the _Demon of Ullanor_, Turman couldn't blame her. Rahman had also reported some unsettling with what he'd seen during the events that had brought them here. The things that inhabited the Warp were not for the eyes of this reality to see.

"Very well. I will tell Operative Lawson that we will make for Illium. The gunship will have to stop to refuel, however. Navigator, dispatch a message to the Fleet. Inform them of our intents, and give them these coordinates –" Turman handed her a folded papyrus wafer " – for the rendezvous point."

"Parchement?" she asked as she took the wafer, smiling reverently. Turman grunted.

"Is it rare?" Gale asked interestedly. "From where you come from?"

"Very. There haven't been any trees on Terra for hundreds of years, if not more," replied Ligaea.

"Uh … last I checked, there were _plenty_ of trees on Earth," the reporter replied. "If that's the planet you mean when you say _Terra …_"

Turman raised his hand. "A story for another time. Dispatch the message, Navigator, while I let Lawson know."

* * *

><p>"We need to make a small detour," announced Ligaea. The bony alien, Garrus, was on board with them again, along with a new humanoid. Vakarian had introduced her as being known as Tali'Zorah vas Neema- Tali for short. Quietly, Turman had informed Ligaea that she was of a species known as the <em>Quarians<em>. Tali's face was hidden by a masked cowl of purplish cloth and an opaque visor. Vakarian hadn't exactly introduced her as being male or female, but the Navigator could infer that she was female by her body. Anyone with half a brain should've be able to do _that_.

The two xenos looked attentively at her in her throne, situated in the embarkation hold. She shrugged. "This ship needs to refuel."

"Alright. Let's just get going as soon as possible," responded Garrus. Tali nodded absently, and settled down on one of the wall-mounted benches. Garrus started to pace left and right impatiently as the Storm Eagle's engines throbbed with power.

"It'll be about seventeen hours, in my estimation, until we get to the refuel station, and another two after that to get to Illium. You aren't going to walk back and forth for the entire time?" she asked him. The Turian sighed, and shook his head. He settled down next to Tali, leaning back against the wall of the gunship, and closed his eyes.

He seemed upset about something. Perhaps she'd bring it up to Turman; more likely though, he knew about it already. The alien seemed tense, like a taut string ready to snap loose.

The Navigator lifted her cranial enclosure up fitted it onto her head. She felt the accompanying awareness it brought steal over her, obscuring her material vision and enhancing her Real Sight. It was once again time to enter the miasma that was the Warp.

* * *

><p>"I can't believe he's really gone," said Tali, shaking her head sadly.<p>

"I know," Vakarian replied. "Remember Virmire? That was our finest moment, I'd say. Charging Saren's facility with the STG … haven't had a moment like that since I'd ran with my little gang on Omega."

"Finest moment? More like worst; do you know how many times I'd thought my suit had been punctured?" the Quarian scoffed. "And then, having Shepard trash our Mako the way he did, taking all those shots to the hull … it took me three whole days to fix it, with the help of the Normandy's mechanic – what was his name again?"

"Corporal Lanton."

"Yes, Lanton. I knew that."

Both of them fell silent, lost in their respective memories. Virmire, the tropical world where they'd tasted defeat, even in victory. Neither of them had particularly fond memories of the rather xenophobic Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, but over the course of the Normandy's adventures, she'd begun to warm up to the non-human members of Shepard's makeshift team. Kaidan had always been the more accepting and open of the two. Still, her loss had affected the team, especially Shepard. To lose one of their own, after a string of successfully completed missions on Feros, Noveria, and a host of other planets and systems, was difficult. Shepard's drive and determination were the only things that had kept the penultimate objective alive and seen the mission through to its completion.

Tali sighed. "He was taking the loss of the Normandy hard. It took me a year to get over it, but for him, it must have been just a few moments ago that he'd seen his ship blown apart." He'd stayed behind, to make sure that everyone got out safely. When the surviving crew had found Joker on the surface of Alchera, he'd been the one to inform them that Shepard had been lost ushering him to the escape pods.

Everyone had searched the surface of Alchera in what capacity they could, but they'd never found his body.

Once again, the two found themselves lost in their memories. Their reverie only broke when the gunship jolted forward. Garrus looked up, shaking his head to clear it, as the woman in the chair, DeFrant, took off her tubed helm and started to stretch her legs. The cylindrical machinery behind her ceased its thrumming, and the ship's main engines started up.

"We're three minutes out until we dock. It'll be a few hours until we can head out again," announced DeFrant.

"Alright," Garrus said. The ship bumped up and down a few more times as the minutes passed, finally shuddering as it landed. The engines throbbed their power output down until the noise they emitted became barely noticeable. The big man at the helm of the ship, Turman, came lumbering out from the hallway adjoining the cockpit to the large hold Garrus and Tali had spent the hours away in. He stabbed at the ramp release and waited for it to lower itself so he could stride off the ship.

"Where are you going?" asked Garrus pointedly. Turman didn't answer, and as soon as the ramp lowered itself, he strode off the ship. Ligaea shrugged when Garrus looked at her.

"He's got business out there," she offered.

"The Specialist is meeting with his commander," voiced Stalker, as he and the reporter Newman emerged from the cockpit. Garrus looked at the black clad man as he loped towards the ramp, Newman following him uncertainly.

"Where are _you _going?" Garrus asked.

The man, like Turman, just continued onward. Gale shrugged helplessly and went on behind him.

"Well … we might as well leave too, for the duration of this interlude," said DeFrant. She got up uncertainly to her feet, flattening the wrinkles in her elegant cream-colored robes. Ligaea beckoned to Garrus and Tali, who both got up to follow her. They walked down the length of the cluttered hold and down the ramp together, with DeFrant leading them.

The area outside the Storm Eagle was vast, akin to some of the hangars on the Systems Alliance Navy that Garrus had visited after the end of the hunt for Saren. The vaulted ceiling arched away high above them, ridged with archaic stone ribs that flared out at their bases. To their right were ordered rows of craft of similar design to the gunship that they'd come to this place in. Clusters of bulbous shuttlecraft tens of meters high and several times longer than that rested to their left. Turman had landed the gunship rather close to an exit, and thankfully; the hangar would've taken at least several minutes to traverse in and out of if he hadn't. After looking around closely, Tali pointed out peculiar set of objects off in the distance. Several UT-4 Kodiak shuttles sat on the hanger floor off in the distance.

"So, this is one of your refueling stations?" Garrus asked Ligaea. She shook her head, scratching at the bandanna that covered her forehead.

"No. I'm not entirely sure which ship this is, but I think it's the one that Turman's superior uses as his flagship."

A ship? Judging by the interior hanger space, it would have to be huge. Tali gave voice to Garrus' question. "How big is this ship, exactly?"

The Navigator pondered the answer for a moment. "I don't know the exact dimensions of this ship, but I believe it's somewhere on the order of two, maybe three kilometers long."

If Garrus had eyebrows, they'd have been raised by now. That was a dreadnought-sized vessel! If the Alliance had been experimenting with heavy support class vessels, the Council would've heard about it by now. How had they managed to keep the development and deployment of such a ship quiet?

A blue-garbed thrall sidled up to them as the three milled about uncertainly around the base of their gunship. DeFrant nodded to the thrall and exchanged several quick words with it.

"This man will get us some new supplies. We need to load them up on the Storm Eagle," she said, turning back to the two aliens and gesturing at them to help the thrall load the Storm Eagle up. "If you wouldn't mind?"


End file.
